In addition, studies have proven that both acute and chronic pancreatitis are the key risk factors for pancreatic cancer [26–28], so we treated 8-week-old KC mice (when PanINs lesions starting formation, as shown in Additional file 1: Fig. S1E) with cerulein to induce pancreatitis, and we found that HSF1 was expressed at a high level and had translocated from the cytoplasm to the nucleus during the pancreatitis (Fig. 1h and i). Here, HSF1 is linked to pancreatitis.