Pancreatic Cancer Cells Invasiveness is Mainly Affected by Interleukin-1β not by Transforming Growth Factor-β1

Background We investigated in vitro whether IL-1β and TGF-β1 affect pancreatic cancer cell growth, adhesion to the extracellular matrix and Matrigel invasion. Materials and methods Adhesion to fibronectin, laminin and type I collagen, and Matrigel invasion after stimulation with saline, IL-1β and TGF-β1 were evaluated using three primary and three metastatic pancreatic cancer cell lines. Results Extracellular matrix adhesion of control cells varied independently of the metastatic characteristics of the studied cell lines, whereas Matrigel invasion of control cells was partly correlated with the in vivo metastatic potential. IL-1β did not influence extracellular matrix adhesion, whereas it significantly enhanced the invasiveness of three of the six cell lines. TGF-β1 affected the adhesion of one cell line, and exerted contrasting effects on Matrigel invasion of different cell lines. Conclusions IL-1β enhances the invasive capacity of pancreatic cancer cells, whereas TGF-β1 has paradoxical effects on pancreatic cancer cells; this makes it difficult to interfere with TGF-β1 signaling in pancreatic cancer treatment.