While treatment of pancreatic cancer cell lines with MET or TRAIL by themselves did not appear to induce significant apoptosis as judged by the percentage of Sub-G1 population detected by propidium iodine staining and flow cytometric cell cycle analysis, the combined MET and trail treatment increased the Sub-G1 population in all three pancreatic cancer cells examined which was due to the interaction between caspases, TRAIL and DR5. The gene discussed is TNFSF10; the disease is familial pancreatic carcinoma.