Combination chemotherapy of valproic acid (VPA) and gemcitabine regulates STAT3/Bmi1 pathway to differentially potentiate the motility of pancreatic cancer cells

Gemcitabine and VPA affect the cell viability, migration and invasion of pancreatic cancer cells. PANC-1 and Patu8988 cells were treated with 0–10 mM of VPA for 36 h (a) or 0–1000 μm of gemcitabine for 24 h (b), and the relative survival rate was determined by the MTT assay. c After treatment with 0.5 mM or 5 mM VPA for 12 h, both cell lines were treated in combination with 5 μm gemcitabine for 24 h, and cell viability was measured by the MTT assay. d The pancreatic cancer cell lines were treated as indicated above, and the migration and invasion abilities were measured by the Transwell migration and invasion assays, respectively. e The relative migration/invasion rate were represented motility abilities of pancreatic cancer cells, and it was calculated by counting the migrated/invasive cells in each treatment group relative to the control group. In a–e, the data are shown from three independent experiments. n.s. no significance. *P？<？0.05; **P？<？0.01; ***P？<？0.001 compared with the contro