Gene expression changes in mouse pancreatic cancer xenograft induced by exposure to enriched environment. Mus musculus

Previous studies reported that mice living in an enriched environment (EE) showed reduced growth of melanoma, colon and breast tumors. Our study extended the potential anti-tumor effect of EE exposure to pancreatic cancer, and firstly provided evidence demonstrating that EE exposure significantly inhibits tumor growth in a syngeneic murine model of pancreatic cancer. To further investigate the mechanisms underlying the EE-induced pancreatic tumor inhibition, we analyzed the gene expression changes in pancreatic tumor xenograft using an integrative transcriptomic and proteomic approach. Our results found that EE largely decreased the expression of genes associated with mitochondrial function at transcriptional level in pancreatic tumor, suggesting mitochondrial dysfunction in tumor cells may play a critical role in EE-induced anti-tumor phenotype. Overall design: Three-week-old C57BL/6 mice were randomized to live in either enriched environment or standard environment conditions. Mice from both groups were given subcutaneous injection of Panc02 murine pancreatic cancer cells (6 × 105 cells per mouse) and lived in their respective homes for 5 additional weeks. Pooled RNA samples extracted from Panc02 tumors (6 mice for each group) were then subjected to Agilent-014868 Whole Mouse Genome 4☓44k Microarray analyses.