Expression and role of integrins in invasive activity of oncotransformed fibroblasts differing in spontaneous metastasizing.

Four closely related lines of RSV-transformed Syrian hamster fibroblasts differing drastically in their spontaneous metastatic capacity were investigated for the surface expression of integrins, in vitro invasion, and production of MMP-2 collagenase. The highly metastasizing HET-SR-2SC-LNM cells differ from the lowly metastasizing parental HET-SR cells in a high level of the surface expression of the collagen-specific alpha1beta1, alpha2beta1, and alphavbeta3 integrins, a high invasive activity, and an increased production of MMP-2. The same properties are characteristic for the actively metastasizing cells of the independent HET-SR-1 line.

Role of integrin alphavbeta3 in substrate-dependent apoptosis of human intestinal carcinoma cells.

Incubation of human intestinal carcinoma Caco-2 cells in suspension (i.e., in the absence of substrate contacts) leads to massive cell death by apoptosis.

[The role of alphavbeta3 integrin in changes of the invasive phenotype in CP-transformed fibroblasts with multiple drug resistance].

A line of Syrian hamster RSV-ransformed fibroblasts having resistance to a number of cytostatics was shown to differ from the parental drug-sensitive line by an extremaly low expression of the integrin alpha v beta 3. In vitro invasive activity of the drug-resistrant cells appeared to be lower than that of their drug-sensitive counterparts. The role of integrin alpha v beta 3 in malignant phenotype and multiple drug resistance of tumor cells is discussed.

Integrin alphavbeta3 promotes anchorage-dependent apoptosis in human intestinal carcinoma cells.

A population of cells surviving during prolonged incubation in suspension (anoikis-negative cells) were selected from the original anoikis-positive human intestinal carcinoma cell line Caco-2. Anoikis-negative cells are characterized by a strong transcriptional downregulation of the alphav-integrin chain as detected by FACS analysis, RT-PCR and Northern blotting. This finding suggested that alphav-integrin generates a signal stimulating apoptosis of Caco-2 cells upon their detachment from the extracellular matrix.

Heparin-binding fibronectin fragments containing cell-binding domains and devoid of hep2 and gelatin-binding domains promote human embryo fibroblast proliferation.

The proliferation promoting activity of various proteolytic fragments of human plasma fibronectin was assayed. Study of this activity in fragments, purified by affinity chromatography, has shown that only heparin-binding fragments were capable of promoting fibroblast proliferation while gelatin- and fibrin-binding fragments were not. Heparin-binding fragments with high affinity for heparin were characterized by high activity levels while those with low heparin affinity were inactive.