Objective To investigate the expression and significance of MRP3 in pancreatic cancer and different tumor cells. Methods MRP3 expression was detected in 30 cases of pancreatic cancer tissues and the adjacent tissues through immunohistochemical method. RT-PCR was used to detect MRP3 mRNA in 7 tumor cell lines and human embryo kidney cell lines 293T. Monoclonal antibody against MRP3 was employed to detect MRP3 protein expression through flow cytometry. Results There was significant difference for MRP3 expression in nucleus between the pancreatic cancer and normal tissues beside the cancer ( P= 0.003 ) while no significant difference was found in cytoplasm (P = 0. 472). MRP3 mRNA expression was found in 3 pancreatic carcinoma cell lines. The positive expression rate of MRP3 protein was relatively high in BxPC-3 and AsPC-1 cells (68. 5% and 33.6% respectively) while it was only 5.4% in PNAC-1. Conclusions The difference of MRP3 expression in pancreatic cancer and normal tissues lies mainly in nucleus. BxPC-3 may serve as cellular models for in vitro studies on multidrug resistance of pancreatic carcinoma.