Colorectal cancer metastasis determined by carbohydrate-mediated cell adhesion: role of sialyl-LeX antigens.
Human colorectal carcinomas with increased metastatic potential and with poor prognosis are characterized by the high content of sialyl-LeX carbohydrate antigens. The levels of these carbohydrate antigens apparently increase during colorectal carcinoma progression from non-metastatic to metastatic tumors. The levels of tumor-associated sialyl-LeX antigens are inversely correlated to the post surgical survival of colon carcinoma patients as revealed by retrospective studies. Cell lines selected for high levels of cell surface sialyl-LeX antigens metastasize to livers when they are injected intrasplenically into nude mice. The highly expressing cells also strongly adhere to activated endothelial cells apparently through E-selectin. We conclude that sialyl-LeX carbohydrate antigen is a unique molecular phenotype that determines colorectal cancer metastasis.
Irimura
T
T
Department of Chemical Toxicology and Immunochemistry, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Tokyo, Japan.
Nakamori
S
S
Matsushita
Y
Y
Taniuchi
Y
Y
Todoroki
N
N
Tsuji
T
T
Izumi
Y
Y
Kawamura
Y
Y
Hoff
S D
SD
Cleary
K R
KR
D002448:Cell Adhesion; D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D016256:Lewis X Antigen / Q000502:physiology*; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis
D016256:Lewis X Antigen