Final Report Summary - RESVERATROL ROLES (Resveratrol-induced molecular markers in cancer and progenitor cells proliferation)
Organogenesis involves a balance between expansion in the number of undifferentiated progenitor cells (PC) and withdrawal of cells from this pool through differentiation. Understanding how this balance is achieved is relevant to a number of clinical problems such as progression of cancer. PCs are essential for the maintenance and regeneration of organs and tissues that exhibit high rates of cell turnover or regenerative reserve. Moreover, at the organism level, alterations in PCs homeostasis balance are clearly fundamental to physiological processes, such as organ development, and to pathological events, such as cancer. Moreover, recent studies supports the model that early event in carcinogenesis is invariably associated with molecular alteration of endogenous pancreatic PCs (PPCs) homeostasis. Here we elucidated whole transcriptome of a recently identified PPCs that are modulated by resveratrol in vitro treatment; and at this stage we are studing a novel gene regulatory network potentially amenable to new diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic targets in pancreatic cancer.