Pancreatic stellate cell: Pandora's box for pancreatic disease biology

Figure 5 Crosstalk between pancreatic stellate cells and pancreatic cancer cells. Pancreatic stellate cells (PSCs) promote cancer cell proliferation, migration, invasion, EMT and metastasis. They also promote the cancer cell survival by decreasing cancer cell apoptosis and helps in chemoresistance. The cancer cells in turn promote PSC proliferation, contractility, migration and increased collagen synthesis. Apart from this, PSCs induce T cell anergy, activate mast cells and promote endothelial cell proliferation and tube formation. Together, these events mediated by PSCs and pancreatic cancer cells further aggravate pancreatic cancer progression. EMT: Epithelial-mesenchymal transition.