Fig. 5
Clinical impact of AChE in the R0 resectable, transgenic pancreatic cancer mouse model and in human PCa. a-b Plasmids containing the Sleeping Beauty (SB) transposase SB13, a Kras-G12V encoding transposon, and the Cre recombinase were injected and electroporated into the pancreatic tail of p53floxed mice (p53fl/fl). (Pfl model). For details on plasmid constructs, please refer to [15]. c-d After pancreatectomy and adjuvant chemotherapy with gemcitabine, mice of the Pfl-genotype exhibited a median survival of 41 days. Combinational therapy of pancreatectomy with adjuvant gemcitabine and physostigmin led to a median survival of 32 days, and with adjuvant gemcitabine and pyridostigmine to 39 days (n.s.: not significant). e Survival rate of PCa patients with high (n = 19) and low (n = 20) AChE presence based on median immunohistochemistry/IHC-Score (n.s., log-rank test.). Kaplan-Meier analysis did not reveal a significant difference in survival between both groups. f Correlation analysis (linear regression) of cancer tissue AChE expression based on semiquantitative IHC score and UICC tumor stage (n.s.: not significant). g Correlation of semiquantitative immunohistochemistry (IHC) scores for AChE expression and tumor grading (G1-G3). (G1 vs. G2 **p = 0.018; G1 vs. G3 **p = 0.015; Mann-Whitney U test). h Correlation analysis (linear regression) of ChAT expression within nerves of human PCa tissues based on semiquantitative IHC score and UICC tumor stage. Graph shows a negative correlation between ChAT expression and tumor stage, indicating that low ChAT expression is correlated to higher tumor stages, while high ChAT expression correlates to low tumor stages (r2 = 0.1988, p = 0.048)