Pancreatic cancer-induced cachexia syndrome

Cancer cachexia syndrome is observed in 80% of patients with advanced-stage cancer, and it is one of the most frequent causes of death. Severe wasting accounts for more than 80% in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer. Here we wanted to define, by using an microarray approach and the Pdx1-cre;LSL-KrasG12D;INK4a/arffl/fl, the pathways involved in muscle, liver and white adipose tissue wasting. The aim of our work was to characterize as extensively as possible the pathways activated by the pancreatic cancer-induced cachectic tissues. For this purpose, we generated and compared genome-wide expression profiles of white adipose tissue, skeletal muscle and liver, from Pdx1-cre;LSL-KrasG12D;INK4a/arffl/fl and LSL-KrasG12D;INK4a/arffl/fl mice at 10 weeks-old. Tissue samples by triplicate was obtained from liver, muscle and adipose tissues in both groups, controls and cachectic mice. Total RNA samples was processed and profiled on Affymetrix Mouse Gene 1.0 ST arrays as previously described (Cano et al, 2012)