Water avoidance stress exacerbates orthotopic pancreatic cancer growth by suppressing cytotoxic T lymphocyte infiltration

Background/Objectives

The incidence of pancreatic cancer is increasing, and it has a poor prognosis. Also, it is often refractory to standard chemotherapy. Psychological stress influences the development of some malignant neoplasms; however, its immunological mechanism is unclear. In this study, we investigated whether water avoidance stress (WAS) promotes mouse orthotopic pancreatic cancer growth and the mechanism through which WAS influences anticancer immunological responses.

Methods

Mouse pancreatic adenocarcinoma cells were orthotopically inoculated into the pancreas of mice. After 2 weeks, the mice were assigned to receive either WAS or sham. After 6 weeks of tumor inoculation, the tumor volume was calculated. The peritumoral interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) were measured; lymphocytes in the pancreas were isolated and analyzed. CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T lymphocyte peritumoral infiltration and intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM-1) expression were analyzed. Tumor-bearing mice were subjected to either WAS or control; the number of adhesive lymphocytes was calculated.

Results

WAS promoted pancreatic cancer growth, and suppressed peritumoral IFN-γ mRNA expression, and cytotoxic T lymphocyte peritumoral infiltration. WAS also suppressed peritumoral lymphocyte adhesion, ICAM-1 expression in the vascular endothelium in the peritumoral region, and peritumoral TNF-α mRNA expression.

Conclusion

Our results suggest that in the peritumoral region, WAS suppressed anticancer immunological responses by the suppression of TNF-α secretion, ICAM-1 expression, lymphocyte adhesion, cytotoxic T lymphocyte infiltration, and IFN-γ secretion, thereby promoted pancreatic cancer growth. Inducing the upregulation of adhesion molecules and augmentation of cytotoxic T cell recruitment may lead to the development of new treatments for pancreatic cancer.