Theses (MSc. Molecular Medicine)

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma cells (PDACs) and pancreatic stellate cells (PSC in a concerted effort protect the tumour microenvironment from immune cells attack. However, most studies have solely focused on their immunosuppressive effects onto T cells, hence, our effort is to study their immunosuppressive effects on B cells viability. Two PDAC cell lines (PANC 10.05 and SW1990) and/or PSC were cultured for 3 days in DMEM : DMEM:f12 (50:50) at 37 oC with 5% CO2 to obtain conditioned media (CM). Collected CM were used to differentiate isolated PBMCs into MDSCs. B cells were isolated from whole blood and treated with CM and on a separate event with isolated MDSCs for 48 hours before proceeding with CellTiter Glo Viability Assay. The cell viability assay showed that CM from PDACs and/or PSCs co-culture are both able to promote B cell proliferation (p<0.05). Similarly, all CM generated MDSCs was also able to promote B cell proliferation but MDSCs untreated by CM is not able to promote B cell proliferation effectively (p < 0.05). These findings indicate that MDSCs’ pro-B cell proliferation activity requires activation by the conditioned media.