Transcriptional Profile of Human Pancreatic Acinar Ductal Metaplasia

Aberrant acinar to ductal metaplasia (ADM), one of the earliest events involved in exocrine pancreatic cancer development, is typically studied using pancreata from genetically engineered mouse models. We used primary, human pancreatic acinar cells from organ donors to evaluate the transcriptional and pathway profiles during the course of ADM. Following 6 days of three-dimensional culture on Matrigel, acinar cells underwent morphological and molecular changes indicative of ADM. mRNA from 14 donors’ paired cells (day 0, acinar phenotype and day 6, ductal phenotype) was subjected to whole transcriptome sequencing. Acinar cell specific genes were significantly downregulated in the samples from the day 6 cultures while ductal cell–specific genes were upregulated. Several regulons of ADM were identified including transcription factors with reduced activity (PTF1A, RBPJL, and BHLHA15) and those ductal and progenitor transcription factors with increased activity (HNF1B, SOX11, and SOX4). Cells with the ductal phenotype contained higher expression of genes increased in pancreatic cancer while cells with an acinar phenotype had lower expression of cancer-associated genes. Our findings support the relevancy of human in vitro models to study pancreas cancer pathogenesis and exocrine cell plasticity.