A panel of seven human pancreatic cancer cell lines (HPCCLs) was used in this study including BxPC-3, Capan-1, FA-6, Panc-1, Mia-Paca-2, Hs766T and CF-PAC-1. All cell lines were cultured routinely at 37°C in a humidified atmosphere (5% CO2) as described previously (15 (link),28 (link)). BxPC-3, Capan-1 and FA-6 were cultured in RPMI-1640 medium (Sigma-Aldrich; Merck KGaA), Panc-1, Mia-Paca-2 and Hs766T were cultured in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium (DMEM) (Merck) and CF-PAC-1 was cultured in Iscove's modified medium each supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS) (heat inactivated) (Sigma-Aldrich; Merck KGaA), antibiotics penicillin (50 µg/ml), streptomycin (50 µg/ml) and neomycin (50 µg/ml) (Sigma-Aldrich; Merck KGaA). RPMI-1640 and Iscove's modified Dulbecco's medium were supplemented with 2 and 8 mM L-glutamine (Sigma-Aldrich; Merck KGaA) respectively.