ABSTRACT
Objective:To investigate the expression of forkhead box protein O3(FOXO3) in pancreatic cancer and its effect on the motility and proliferation of pancreatic cancer cells.Methods:The FOXO3 expression in pancreatic cancer and adjacent tissues was retrieved from LinkedOmics database. Western blotting and real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction were used to detect FOXO3 expression in pancreatic cancer cells and human pancreatic stellate cells. PANC-1 and MIAPaCa-2 pancreatic cancer cells with low FOXO3 expression were selected to transfect FOXO3 overexpression plasmid and negative control plasmid, respectively. The motility and proliferation ability of pancreatic cancer cells were detected by colony formation assay, cell scratch assay, Transwell assay and flow cytometry.Results:In the LinkedOmics database, the relative expression of FOXO3 protein in the cancer tissues of 64 patients with pancreatic cancer was significantly lower than that in the adjacent tissues ( t=8.36, P<0.001). The number of clones in PANC-1 cell line was (30.0±6.6) after overexpressed FOXO3, which was lower than that in negative control cells (92.7±6.7), and the difference was statistically significant ( t=11.54, P<0.001). After overexpressed FOXO3 in PANC-1 and MIAPaCa-2 cell lines, the scratch repair rate was significantly decreased compared with the control group. In Transwell experiment, the number of cells in FOXO3 overexpressed group in PANC-1 cell lines was (21.0±6.6), which was lower than that of negative control groups (55.7±8.5), and the difference was statistically significant ( t=5.59, P=0.005). The results of MIAPaCa-2 cell line were consistent with that of PANC-1 cell line. After overexpressing of FOXO3 in PANC-1 and MIAPaCa-2 cell lines, the proportion of cells in the G0/G1 phase decreased, while the proportion in the S phase increased. Conclusion:The expression of FOXO3 was decreased in pancreatic cancer. Overexpression of FOXO3 could significantly inhibit the proliferation, migration and invasion of pancreatic cancer cells and induce cell cycle arrest, which is a potential target for the treatment of pancreatic cancer.