| Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDAC) are aggressive tumors with high metastatic potential and with no effective therapeutic option available. At LAPIC we are establishing interdisciplinary research lines to investigate the epigenetic regulation and molecular and cellular mechanisms of metastasis in pancreatic cancer. The large cell heterogeneity, the complex molecular interactions in the tumor microenvironment, and the epigenetic mechanisms involved in the establishment of tumoral phenotypes may explain at least in part the difficulty of identifying clinically exploitable vulnerabilities in the PDAC. Studies on the role and mechanism of action of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) on the epigenetic control of EMT and the establishment of tumor initiator cells (TICs), and the understanding of the signalling that occurs between the tumor and its microenvironment should contribute significant for the knowledge of the molecular mechanisms involved in the acquisition of the metastatic phenotype, and for the identification of new targets for its treatment. |
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