Cover caption

Abstract

In 2008, a Carnegie Mellon professor named Randy Pausch, brought pancreatic cancer into the limelight. Oddly, he was not a cancer researcher but a gifted computer scientist and brought not a cure for pancreatic cancer but hope to those fighting this dreadful disease. Though diagnosed in 2006 as having only 3-6 months to live, Dr. Pausch successfully battled the disease for 20 months. In that time, he brought hope to people struggling with cancer and with life via his now famous “Last Lecture”. Unfortunately, the current prognosis for most patients with advanced cancer is less than 1 year.

Recent studies have shown that deregulation of the hedgehog pathway, important for the development of the pancreas, is a component of pancreatic cancer. In the current issue of Cancer Biology & Therapy, Chun and colleagues look at the effects of inhibiting histone deacetylases (HDACs) and the hedgehog pathway. In the cover image, the gemcitabine resistant pancreatic cell line BxPC-3 was treated with suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA) to inhibit type I and II histone deacetylases. The green staining shows that the anti-apoptotic protein, survivin, is localized to the nucleus in SAHA treated cells. Actin is visualized (red) with Alexa Fluor 546 conjugated phalloidin. To learn more about the effects of the combined regimen on pancreatic cells, see the article by Chun and colleagues.