Cell Culture

The human PSCs were isolated from normal pancreatic tissue obtained during liver transplantation surgery from patients. Moreover, the PSCs were isolated and cultured by the methods described in previous studies¹⁶ as explained elsewhere. Normal pancreatic tissues were obtained from the Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery at the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University. Cellular morphology, oil red O staining of intracellular fat droplets, and immunofluorescence staining of α-SMA were used to identify the purity of the PSCs as described in previous studies¹⁷. The human pancreatic cancer cell lines Panc-1 and Mia Paca-2 were purchased from the Chinese Academy of Sciences Cell Bank of Type Culture Collection (CBTCCCAS). Panc-1 and Mia Paca-2 cells were cultured in Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s medium (DMEM) (high glucose) (HyClone, Logan, UT, USA) at 37°C with 5% CO₂ and 95% air. The media were supplemented with 10% heat-inactivated fetal bovine serum (FBS), 100 μg/ml ampicillin, and 100 μg/ml streptomycin.