Identifying genes directly regulated by Gal1 through its DNA promoter binding in pancreatic stellate cells (PSCs)
Galectin-1 (Gal1) is highly expressed in activated PSCs nuclei, a cell type which plays a key role in PDA progression. In order to identify whether Gal-1 is able to recognize regulatory gene elements and regulate their expressión we performed a chromatin immunorecipitation assay followed by sequencing (ChIP-seq). Its analysis revealed that 16% of Gal-1 targets correspond to gene promoters, Indeed, most of these candicates are cancer-associated genes. Among them we found KRAS, which plays an important role in PSC activation. ChIP-seq results were validated by ChIP-qPCR using two independent Gal1 antibodies. These results identify a novel role for nuclear Gal1 by controlling transcriptional gene expression of cancer-associated genes in PSC in the PDA TME. Overall design: Chromatin immunoprecipitation DNA-sequencing (ChIP-seq) for Galectin-1 in activated pancreatic stellate cells