Panoply™ Human DKK1 Knockdown Stable Cell Line

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a major histological subtype of pancreatic cancer. Despite advances in surgery and systemic therapy, its 5-year survival rate remains below 10%, making it one of the deadliest solid malignancies. Here, researchers screened and externally validated four reproducible tumor-associated genes-DKK1, COL10A1, SULF1, and SLC24A3. DKK1 is primarily expressed in tumor epithelial cells and its expression changes with malignant progression. Spatially, DKK1 localizes to predominantly epithelial regions, revealing significant intratumoral heterogeneity and highlighting epithelial-endothelial and endothelial-immune signaling pathways in high-scoring regions. Immunodevolution analysis showed that high DKK1 expression was associated with increased myeloid infiltration and decreased cytotoxic lymphocyte characteristics. Functionally, DKK1 knockdown impairs cell migration, proliferation, and colony formation, while increasing apoptosis. These results indicate that DKK1 is an epithelial-derived regulator associated with malignant progression and tumor-stromal-immune remodeling, supporting its potential as a biomarker and therapeutic target for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), including its rational combination with stromal modulation strategies and immunotherapy.

To validate the function of DKK1 in pancreatic cancer cells, researchers knocked down DKK1 in MIA PaCa-2 and PANC-1 cells and assessed key malignant phenotypes. Wound healing assays showed that, compared to the control group, DKK1 knockdown cells exhibited reduced migration ability, resulting in delayed scratch healing (Figure 1A, B). Transwell assays also consistently showed a reduced number of migrating cells in DKK1 knockdown cells (Figure 1A, B). In addition to migration ability, DKK1 knockdown also reduced colony formation ability in colony formation assays (Figure 1C) and inhibited cell proliferation for up to four days in CCK-8 assays (Figure 1D, E).

Figure 1. Functional effects of DKK1 knockdown in pancreatic cancer cell lines. (Xu J, et al., 2026)