Adaptation to statins restricts human tumour growth in Nude mice.

Background: Statins have long been used as anti-hypercholesterolemia drugs, but numerous lines of evidence suggest that they may also bear anti-tumour potential. We have recently demonstrated that it was possible to isolate cancer cells adapted to growth in the continuous presence of lovastatin. These cells grew more slowly than the statin-sensitive cells of origin.

Matrilysin 1 influences colon carcinoma cell migration by cleavage of the laminin-5 beta3 chain.

Matrilysin 1 [matrix metalloproteinase 7 (MMP7)] is one of the most important metalloproteinases expressed in human tissues. This enzyme is generally not expressed by normal differentiated epithelial colon cells, but has been shown to be up-regulated in human colon adenomas and adenocarcinomas. Little is known about the role of MMP7 in cell invasion and its involvement in proteolytic processes.

[Matrilysin-1 and cancer pathology].

Matrilysin-1 has a considerable importance in the progression of cancers, namely digestive, ones inasmuch as it fulfils a direct function of deterioration on molecular targets at different levels and interferes as well in the activation of other proteolytic systems. Its low expression in sound tissues increases distinctly in mild cellular proliferations like adenomas to increase even more in carcinomas and be involved at the level of tumoral development as well as in a metastatical proliferation. It acts during the different stages of malignant transformation, splitting the E-cadherin, an intercellular adhesive molecule of epithelia, matrix molecules in the tumor-stroma interface and integrins which link matrix components to epithelial cells.

The role of fibroblasts in the modulation of integrin-dependent interactions between the gastric cell line HGT-1 and fibronectin.

Fibronectin plays an important role in gastric cancer progression. However, little is known about the microenvironmental factors modulating integrin-dependent interactions between gastric cancer cells and fibronectin. We therefore studied the regulation by fibroblasts of the integrin-dependent adhesion and migration of the gastric cancer cell line HGT-1 onto fibronectin.

Inhibition of proprotein convertases enhances cell migration and metastases development of human colon carcinoma cells in a rat model.

Although proprotein convertases are involved in tumor development, nothing is known about their role in metastatic dissemination. To investigate the involvement of convertase inhibition, we used human colon carcinoma cells overexpressing alpha1-antitrypsin Portland (alpha1-PDX, PDX39P cells), a potent convertase inhibitor. We previously reported that these cells bear uncleaved integrin alpha subunits and display an altered attachment to vitronectin that is correlated with defects in the intracellular signaling pathways activated by alphavbeta5 integrin ligation.

Age-dependent variations of human and rat colon myofibroblasts in culture: Influence on their functional interactions with colon cancer cells.

Epithelial-mesenchymal interactions play a pivotal role in colon cancer invasion and metastasis. We aimed at elucidating the impact of long-term cultivation on the phenotypic and functional characteristics of primary fibroblasts and their interaction with the human colon adenocarcinoma cell line LoVoC5. We used fibroblasts from human colon tumor tissue, normal human colon mucosa, rat normal colon and 2 rat colon-derived myofibroblast cell lines, MIC316 and MG.