Valkovskaya N. The role of metalloproteinase ADAM8 in the pathogenesis of pancreatic cancer

The dissertation covers the studies of ADAM8 expression and analyzes the role of this protein in the pancreatic cancer development and its impact on malignant progression. Objects of this study were 127 pancreatic cancer patients, 64 patients with chronic pancreatitis, 56 donors, 8 human pancreatic cancer cell lines. The methods of molecular biology, immunohistochemistry, ELISA analysis and mass-spectrometry are used in this study. It has been shown that ADAM8 is overexpressed in pancreatic cancer tissue and influenced pancreatic cancer cell invasion. It has been shown that hypoxia influences the expression of the ADAM8 mRNA and proteine in pancreatic cancer cells. Correlation analysis between ADAM8 mRNA level and survival of PC patients demonstrated that patients with low ADAM8 expression have significantly better survival than patients with high level of ADAM8. Our findings suggest that ADAM8 might be a potential prognostic marker for pancreatic cancer patients.