Compressed pancreatic cancer cells demonstrated greater cancer migratory potential under 534.0 Pa of solid stress through 1) the activation of Akt/CREB1/GDF15 pathway, 2) the activation of both the p38 MAPK/HSP27 and JNK/c-Jun signalling pathways and 3) the upregulation of key actin cytoskeleton modulators including CDC42 and RAC1 (Chen et al., 2017; Kalli et al., 2022). Here, GDF15 is linked to familial pancreatic carcinoma.