Shi XY, Wang XL, Zhao J, Yang SH, Zhang CH. Role of octamer transcription factor 4 in proliferation, migration, drug sensitivity, and stemness maintenance of pancreatic cancer cells. World J Clin Oncol 2025; 16(3): 100723 [DOI: 10.5306/wjco.v16.i3.100723]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Jin Zhao, MMed, Chief Doctor, Department of General Surgery, The Third Affiliated Hospital, Inner Mongolia Medical University, No. 20 Shaoxian Street, Baotou 014010, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China. zhaojin20072008@163.com
Research Domain of This Article
Oncology
Article-Type of This Article
Basic Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Clin Oncol. Mar 24, 2025; 16(3): 100723 Published online Mar 24, 2025. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v16.i3.100723
Role of octamer transcription factor 4 in proliferation, migration, drug sensitivity, and stemness maintenance of pancreatic cancer cells
Xue-Ying Shi, Xi-Lan Wang, Jin Zhao, Shi-Hai Yang, Cheng-Hai Zhang
Xue-Ying Shi, Jin Zhao, Shi-Hai Yang, Cheng-Hai Zhang, Department of General Surgery, The Third Affiliated Hospital, Inner Mongolia Medical University, Baotou 014010, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China
Xi-Lan Wang, Department of Gastroenterology, Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jinan 250355, Shandong Province, China
Co-first authors: Xue-Ying Shi and Xi-Lan Wang.
Co-corresponding authors: Jin Zhao and Shi-Hai Yang.
Author contributions: Shi XY and Wang XL were responsible for the project design; Shi XY, Wang XL, Zhang CH, and Yang SH performed the experiments and analyzed the data; Wang XL drafted the manuscript; Zhao J revised the manuscript. Shi XY and Wang XL contributed equally to this work as co-first authors. First, the two co-corresponding authors play an equal role in revising the manuscript; Secondly, as the corresponding author Zhao J is the director of the department, the daily operation is relatively large and busy, in many cases, we have to entrust Yang SH (another corresponding author) to pay more attention to the email exchanges with your journal, and inform Zhao J to jointly revise the manuscript according to the revision opinions of your journal.
Supported by Inner Mongolia Natural Science Foundation and the 3rd Affiliated of Inner Medical University, No. 2021MS08067.
Institutional review board statement: Paraffin samples from human pancreatic cancer were approved by the committee on the Ethics of Shanghai Xinchao Biological Technology Co., LTD.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of the article.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Jin Zhao, MMed, Chief Doctor, Department of General Surgery, The Third Affiliated Hospital, Inner Mongolia Medical University, No. 20 Shaoxian Street, Baotou 014010, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China. zhaojin20072008@163.com
Received: August 24, 2024 Revised: November 18, 2024 Accepted: December 13, 2024 Published online: March 24, 2025 Processing time: 149 Days and 21.2 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Pancreatic cancer (PC) is one of the most aggressive malignancies characterized by rapid progression and poor prognosis. The involvement of cancer stem cells (CSCs) and Octamer transcription factor 4 (OCT4) in PC pathobiology is being increasingly recognized.
AIM
To investigate the role of OCT4 in pancreatic CSCs and its effect on PC cell proliferation, migration, drug sensitivity, and stemness maintenance.
METHODS
We analyzed OCT4 and CD133 expression in PC tissues and cell lines. BxPC-3 cells were used to assess the effects of OCT4 modulation on cellular behavior. Proliferation, migration, and stemness of BxPC-3 cells were evaluated, and the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway was examined to gain mechanistic insights.
RESULTS
OCT4 and CD133 were significantly overexpressed in PC tissues. OCT4 modulation altered BxPC-3 cell proliferation, invasion, and stemness, with OCT4 overexpression (OV-OCT4) enhancing these properties and OCT4 interference decreasing them. OV-OCT4 activated the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway, which correlated with an increase in PC stem cells (PCSC).
CONCLUSION
OCT4 plays a crucial role in PCSCs by influencing the aggressiveness and drug resistance of PC cells, thus presenting itself as a potential therapeutic target.
Core Tip: This study introduces a novel perspective on Octamer transcription factor 4 (OCT4)'s role in pancreatic cancer (PC) stem cells (PCSCs) and demonstrated that OCT4 overexpression enhances activity and drug resistance of PCSCs, with notable implications for PC treatment.
