TGM2 and pancreatic neoplasm: In this context, recent observations that activated PSCs, PanINs [10] and advanced-stage pancreatic cancer [11,12] express elevated levels of the pro-inflammatory protein tissue transglutaminase (TG2), in conjunction with the earlier observations that TG2-catalyzed protein crosslinking reactions play an important role in ECM stabilization [13], are of particular importance.