Fig. 1

miR-135 is induced upon glutamine deprivation in PDAC cells. a Heatmap of miRNAs expression in human pancreatic tumors compared with normal tissues measured by RNA-seq. b Alignment between mature miR-135b and miR-135a indicating one nucleotide difference; miR-135b and miR-135a expression in nine pairs of pancreatic tumors compared with adjacent normal tissues were measured by qPCR. Each value represents the mean ± SD in three independent experiments. **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, Student’s t test. c MIA PaCa-2 cells were cultured in medium without glutamine, glucose, serine, glycine or cysteine for 24 h. miR-135a and miR-135b relative expression were assessed by qPCR. Each value represents the mean ± SD in three independent experiments. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, Student’s t test. d MIA PaCa-2, PANC-1, and BxPc-3 cells were cultured in glutamine-free medium for 24 h. miR-135a and miR-135b relative expression were assessed by qPCR. Each value represents the mean ± SD in three independent experiments. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, Student’s t test. e MIA PaCa-2 cells were cultured in glutamine-free medium for 24 or 48 h. miR-135 expression was assessed by qPCR. Each value represents the mean ± SD in three independent experiments. **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, Student’s t test. f MIA PaCa-2 cells were cultured in glutamine-free medium for 24 h, then glutamine was added back, and cells were cultured an additional 24 h. miR-135a and miR-135b relative expression were assessed by qPCR. Each value represents the mean ± SD in three independent experiments. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, Student’s t test (Ctrl: complete medium; No Gln: glutamine-free medium). PDAC: pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma