Metformin Increases the Chemosensitivity of Pancreatic Cancer Cells to Gemcitabine by Reversing EMT Through Regulation DNA Methylation of miR-663

Background Pancreatic cancer is a devastating malignancy with poor prognosis. Metformin, a classic anti-diabetes drug, seems to improve survival of pancreatic cancer patients in some studies. Methods Cell counting kit-8 assay was used to detect the BxPC-3 and MIAPaCa-2 cell viability after treatment with gemcitabine only or with different concentrations of metformin. The methylation state and expression level of miR-663 were detected by methylation analysis and RT-PCR. Dual-luciferase reporter gene analysis, Western blot and RT-PCR were used to confirm the target of miR-663. Moreover, xenograft experiment was also performed to validate the role of metformin in chemosensitivity in vivo. Results We found that metformin increased the chemosensitivity of pancreatic cancer cells to gemcitabine, and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) progress caused by gemcitabine was suppressed by metformin. We further explored the possible molecular mechanisms and it was demonstrated that CpG islands of miR-663 were hypomethylated and relative expression level of miR-663 was up-regulated after treatment of metformin. miR-663, an important cancer suppressor miRNA, was confirmed to increase the chemosensitivity of pancreatic cancer cells by reversing EMT directly targeted TGF-β1. Moreover, we identified that metformin increased the chemosensitivity through up-regulating expression of miR-663. Conclusion We demonstrated that metformin increased the chemosensitivity of pancreatic cancer cells to gemcitabine by reversing EMT through regulation DNA methylation of miR-663.