Ionizing Radiation and Ketogenic Diet for Pancreatic Cancer

Mia Paca-2 cells (pancreatic cancer cell line) were obtained from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC). Mia Paca-2 cells were maintained in Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle’s Medium containing 10% FBS (Hyclone). Female 4 to 6 week old athymic nu/nu mice were purchased from Harlan Laboratories. Mice were housed in the Animal Care Facility at our institution and all procedures were approved by our Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and conformed to NIH guidelines. Mice were subcutaneously injected with 2.5 × 10⁶ Mia-Paca-2 pancreatic cancer cells into the right flanks. When tumors reached approximately 4 mm in diameter, mice were treated with ionizing radiation (12 Gy in 6 × 2 Gy fractions) or ionizing radiation combined with KD for 25 days as previously described (9 (link)). The 4:1 KetoCal® diet for the animal studies was purchased from Nutricia North America, Inc. (Gaithersburg, MD) and prepared as per the manufacturer’s instructions while the controls were fed standard mouse chow. Daily weighing of the unfinished food pellets monitored food intake. To ensure mice fed with KetoCal® were in ketosis, blood HbA1c was calculated using Crystal Chem mouse assay kit (Downers Grove, IL) and blood ketone levels were measured with the Precision Xtra ketone monitoring system (Abbott; Alameda, CA).