Chemokines, a large family of small chemoattractive cytokines, and their receptors play an integral role in the regulation of the immune response and homeostasis. The ability of chemokines to attract specific populations of immune cells sets them apart from other chemoattractants. Chemokines produced within the gastrointestinal mucosa, are critical players in directing the balance between physiological and pathophysiological inflammation in health, inflammatory bowel disease and the progression to colon cancer. In addition to the well-characterized role of chemokines in directed trafficking of immune cells to the gut mucosa, the expression of chemokine receptors on the cells of the epithelium makes them active participants in the chemokine signaling network. Recent findings demonstrate an important role for chemokines and chemokine receptors in epithelial barrier repair and maintenance as well as an intricate involvement in limiting metastasis of colonic carcinoma. Increased recognition of the association between barrier defects and inflammation and the subsequent progression to cancer in inflammatory bowel disease thus implicates chemokines as key regulators of mucosal homeostasis and disease pathogenesis.

Diets containing either freeze-dried black raspberries (BRB) or their polyphenolic anthocyanins (AC) have been shown to inhibit the development of N- nitrosomethylbenzylamine (NMBA)-induced esophageal cancer in rats. The present study was conducted to determine if PCA, a major microbial metabolite of BRB AC, also prevents NMBA-induced esophageal cancer in rats. F344 rats were injected with NMBA three times a week (wk) for five weeks (wks) and then fed control or experimental diets containing 6.1% BRB, an AC-rich fraction derived from BRB, or PCA. Animals were exsanguinated at wks 15, 25, and 35 to quantify the development of preneoplastic lesions and tumors in the esophagus, and to relate this to the expression of inflammatory biomarkers. At wks 15 and 25, all experimental diets were equally effective in reducing NMBA-induced esophageal tumorigenesis, as well as in reducing the expression of Pentraxin-3 (PTX3), a cytokine produced by peripheral blood mononuclear cells in response to IL-1β and TNF-α. All experimental diets were also active at reducing tumorigenesis at wk 35; however, the BRB diet was significantly more effective than the AC and PCA diets. Further, all experimental diets inhibited inflammation in the esophagus via reducing biomarker (COX-2, iNOS, p-NF-κB, sEH) and cytokine (PTX3) expression. Overall, our data suggest that BRB, their component AC and PCA inhibit NMBA-induced esophageal tumorigenesis, at least in part, by their inhibitory effects on genes associated with inflammation.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is an unsolved health problem with nearly 75% of patients diagnosed with advanced disease and an overall 5-year survival rate near 5%. Despite the strong link between mortality and malignancy, the mechanisms behind pancreatic cancer dissemination and metastasis are poorly understood. Correlative pathological and cell culture analyses suggest the chemokine receptor CXCR4 plays a biological role in pancreatic cancer progression. In vivo roles for the CXCR4 ligand CXCL12 in pancreatic cancer malignancy were investigated. CXCR4 and CXCR7 were consistently expressed in normal and cancerous pancreatic ductal epithelium, established cell lines, and patient-derived primary cancer cells. Relative to healthy exocrine ducts, CXCL12 expression was pathologically repressed in pancreatic cancer tissue specimens and patient-derived cell lines. To test the functional consequences of CXCL12 silencing, pancreatic cancer cell lines stably expressingthe chemokine were engineered. Consistent with a role for CXCL12 as a tumor suppressor, cells producing the chemokine wereincreasingly adherent and migration deficient in vitro and poorly metastatic in vivo, compared to control cells. Further, CXCL12 reintroduction significantly reduced tumor growth in vitro, with significantly smaller tumors in vivo, leading to a pronounced survival advantage in a preclinical model. Together, these data demonstrate a functional tumor suppressive role for the normal expression of CXCL12 in pancreatic ducts, regulating both tumor growth andcellulardissemination to metastatic sites.