Abstract

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most aggressive malignancies, with a 5-year survival rate of 5–10 %. The high mortality rate is due to the asymptomatic progression of clinical features in metastatic stages of the disease, which renders standard therapeutic options futile. PDAC is characterised by alterations in several genes that drive carcinogenesis and limit therapeutic response. The two most common genetic aberrations in PDAC are the mutational activation of KRAS and loss of the tumour suppressor CDK inhibitor 2A (CDKN2A), which culminate the activation of the cyclin-dependent kinase 4 and 6 (CDK4/6), that promote G1 cell cycle progression. Therapeutic strategies focusing on the CDK4/6 inhibitors such as palbociclib (PD-0332991) may potentially improve outcomes in this malignancy. MicroRNAs (miRs/miRNAs) are small endogenous non-coding RNA molecules associated with cellular proliferation, invasion, apoptosis, and cell cycle. Primarily, miR-21 promotes cell proliferation and a higher proportion of PDAC cells in the S phase, while knockdown of miR-21 has been linked to cell cycle arrest at the G2/M phase and inhibition of cell proliferation. In this study, using a CRISPR/Cas9 loss-of-function screen, we individually silenced the expression of miR-21 in two PDAC cell lines and in combination with PD-0332991 treatment, we examined the synergetic mechanisms of CDK4/6 inhibitors and miR-21 knockouts (KOs) on cell survival and death. This combination reduced cell proliferation, cell viability, increased apoptosis and G1 arrest in vitro. We further analysed the mitochondrial respiration and glycolysis of PDAC cells; then assessed the protein content of these cells and revealed numerous Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways associated with PD-0332991 treatment and miR-21 knocking out. Our results demonstrate that combined targeting of CDK4/6 and silencing of miR-21 represents a novel therapeutic strategy in PDAC.