Autocrine transforming growth factor-alpha is associated with progression of transformed properties in human colon cancer cells.

The GEO colon carcinoma cell line is weakly tumorigenic in athymic mice and shows differentiated properties both in tissue culture and in xenografts. Proliferating monolayer cultures of GEO cells which normally require exogenous epidermal growth factor (EGF) for optimal growth displayed a marked inhibition in growth upon addition of antibodies that block binding to the EGF receptor or neutralize TGF-alpha. These results indicated that GEO cells utilize TGF-alpha in a weak autocrine loop.

Sensitivity of nuclear c-myc levels and induction to differentiation-inducing agents in human colon tumor cell lines.

Six human colon tumor cell lines were analyzed for their constitutive levels of the c-myc protein. The nuclear proto-oncogene, c-myc, was detected as an expressed product in all of the human colon tumor cell lines analyzed. The poorly differentiated cell lines HCT116, RKO and C showed c-myc levels that averaged 2-fold greater than their well-differentiated counterparts, i.

Evidence for c-myc in the signaling pathway for TGF-beta in well-differentiated human colon carcinoma cells.

Previously, we described a model culture system for comparing responsiveness of poorly differentiated and well-differentiated human colon carcinoma cells to exogenous growth factors. While polypeptide growth stimulators elicited an up-regulation of c-myc, as well as a mitogenic response in the well-differentiated cells, the poorly differentiated cells were insensitive to exogenous growth stimulators. We now show, by thymidine incorporation experiments and autoradiographic analysis, that transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGF-beta) abrogated the mitogenic responses to the growth factors epidermal growth factor + insulin + transferrin (IC50 = 0.

Characterization of a serum-free culture system comparing growth factor requirements of transformed and untransformed cells.

We describe the first completely serum-free model culture system for comparing growth control in transformed and untransformed cells. Continuous maintenance of untransformed AKR-2B fibroblasts and chemically transformed AKR-MCA cells in the presence of serum-free medium containing epidermal growth factor (E), insulin (I), and transferrin (T) resulted in cell lines which proliferated with similar doubling times (14 h), comparable to parental lines maintained in 10% serum (16 h). The transformed MCA-SF cells and untransformed AKR-SF cells did not differ in their saturation densities in medium containing E + I + T.

Alteration in the behavior of a colon carcinoma cell line by extracellular matrix components.

It was previously demonstrated that substrata derived from well differentiated colon carcinoma cell lines induced a more benign program in a separate malignant colon cell line, MOSERsf. This study attempts to define a role for extracellular matrix components in the biological events of MOSERsf cells. Alterations in morphology, secreted carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and urokinase brought about by individual components were determined.