Indomethacin prevents TGF-β-induced epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition in pancreatic cancer cells; evidence by Raman spectroscopy

[Display omitted] •TGF-β induces epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in pancreatic cancer cells.•Role of EMT is evident in pancreatic cancer cell invasion and metastasis.•Indomethacin prevented TGF-β-induced EMT in Panc-1 cells.•Raman spectroscopy determined EMT-related changes.•PCA accurately distinguish spectral differences between groups. Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has a very low survival rate due to the late detection and poor response to chemotherapy. Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is considered an important step in tumor progression with regard to invasion and metastasis, and Transforming Growth Factor-beta (TGF-β) signaling has been shown to play an important role in EMT. Therefore, we aimed to investigate whether indomethacin, an anti-inflammatory and analgesic drug, has any effect on TGF-β-induced EMT in pancreatic cancer cell line and analyze the changes in their molecular structures by Raman spectroscopy and other molecular techniques. Indomethacin treated Panc-1 cells were analyzed with Raman spectroscopy, quantitative polymerase chain reaction and immunofluorescence techniques after the induction of EMT with TGF-β. The exposure of Panc-1 cells to TGF-β resulted in characteristic morphological alterations of EMT, and indomethacin inhibits TGF-β-induced EMT through up-regulation of E-cadherin and down-regulation of N-cadherin and Snail expressions. Raman spectroscopy supported by principal component analysis (PCA) confirmed the effects of both TGF-β and indomethacin. Raman spectra were further analyzed using the PCA-assisted vector machine algorithm and it was seen that the data could be classified with 97.6% accuracy. Our results suggest that indomethacin may have a significant effect on PDAC metastasis, and Raman spectroscopy was able to probe EMT-related changes and the efficacy of indomethacin in a short time and without the need for specific reagents compared to other molecular techniques.