title: Specific growth stimulation in the absence of specific cellular adhesion in lung colonization by retinoic-acid-treated F9 teratocarcinoma cells.
abstract: In most studies concerning organ-specific metastasis, different or selected lines are compared with one another. Here we report results with the same cell line (the F9 murine teratocarcinoma) which can be directed towards liver or lung, depending on whether or not it is treated with retinoic acid and cyclic AMP. Thus, organ-specific colonization by tail-vein-injected murine F9 teratocarcinoma cells shows a particular pattern: unselected, undifferentiated F9 cells preferentially colonize the liver of the syngeneic animal. The lungs, the first capillary bed encountered by cells thus injected, are only very rarely colonized. By contrast, the lungs become the main target organ of F9 cells induced to differentiate by treatment with retinoic acid and cyclic AMP. We have recently shown that liver colonization by undifferentiated F9 cells correlated with the adhesiveness of the cells (higher to fibronectin and liver-derived extracellular matrix than to laminin and lung-derived extracellular matrix) as well as with their growth response to organ-derived extracts (no response with lung extracts and good response with liver extracts). The data reported below indicate that induction of differentiation causes at most a decreased adhesiveness of F9 cells to all the substrata tested (laminin, fibronectin, type-IV collagen, organ-derived extracellular matrix), suggesting that the shift in organ colonization observed with differentiated F9 cells is not due to an enhancement of the specific adhesion to the lung matrix. On the other hand, differentiated cells, but not undifferentiated ones, were able to respond to growth stimulation mediated by lung-derived extracts, thereby implying a relevant role for organ-specific growth stimulation in lung colonization by differentiated F9 cells.
authors.affiliation: Friedrich Miescher Institut, Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Rusciano
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lorenzoni
authors.forename: M M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Burger
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002448:Cell Adhesion; D002455:Cell Division; D016326:Extracellular Matrix Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000209:etiology*; D051379:Mice; D009928:Organ Specificity; D013724:Teratoma / Q000473:pathology*; D014212:Tretinoin / Q000494:pharmacology*; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured
chemical_list: D016326:Extracellular Matrix Proteins; D014212:Tretinoin