Fig. 2

ITGA2 silencing activated TGF-β signaling pathway in pancreatic cancer cells. a and b Volcano plot (a) and heatmap (b) showing the differentially expressed genes in PANC-1 cells infected with si-Control or si-ITGA2. The blue points represent the downregulated genes (n = 365), while the red points represent the upregulated genes (n = 427). c Heatmap showing a group of ITGA2 knockdown-regulated genes in the TGF-β signaling pathway. d Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was performed using R package. Genes associated with the TGF-β signaling pathway in the si-ITGA2 group were significantly enriched as compared to the si-control group. P = 0.009. e-g. PANC-1 and AsPC-1 cells infected with sh-ITGA2 or sh-Control were treated with or without TGF-β recombinant protein for 24 h (5 ng/ml). RT-PCR was used to detect the mRNA expression levels of the downstream genes in the TGF-β signaling pathway, including CDKN2B (e), CDKN1A (f), and SERPINE3 (g). GAPDH served as an internal reference and repeated in triplicates. ***P < 0.001. h Western blot analysis was used to detect the protein level of CDKN1A, CDKN2B, and ITGA2 in the PANC-1 and AsPC-1 cells