Calixar and Biouniversa published unprecedented new insights on Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) in Nature Communications

In this paper, the authors showed for the first time that pancreatic adenocarcinoma cells secrete BAG3 that acts as a cytokine activating a paracrine loop. Indeed we show that BAG3 binds to macrophages through a membrane protein that acts as receptor, IFITM-2, and activates PI3K and the p38 MAPK signaling pathways leading to the release of a number of factors, including IL6 from macrophages that in turn stimulate tumor growth.