Pancreatic cancer (PANC-1 and SW1990) and normal human pancreatic duct epithelial (HPDE6-C7) cell lines were obtained from the American Type Culture Collection. Cells were maintained in DMEM medium supplemented with 10% FBS (Gibco, USA) at 37°C in a humidified incubator containing 5% CO2 (Shanghai Medical Instruments, China). PA-MSHA and wild type PA were obtained from Beijing Wanter Bio-Pharmaceutical (China). The following antibodies were used in this study: anti-pEGFR, -EGFR, -pERK, -ERK, -pAKT, -AKT, -caspase-3, -cleaved caspase-3, and -GAPDH (Cell Signaling Technology, USA).