Science, Vol 251, Issue 5001, 1600-1602
Copyright © 1991 by American Association for the Advancement of Science
In vitro and in vivo consequences of VLA-2 expression on rhabdomyosarcoma cells
BM Chan,
N Matsuura,
Y Takada,
BR Zetter,
and
ME Hemler
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115.
Cloned integrin alpha 2 subunit complementary DNA was expressed on human rhabdomyosarcoma (RD) cells to give a functional VLA-2 (alpha 2 beta 1) adhesion receptor. The VLA-2-positive RDA2 cells not only showed increased adhesion to collagen and laminin in vitro, but also formed substantially more metastatic tumor colonies in nude mice after either intravenous or subcutaneous injection. These results show that a specific adhesion receptor (VLA-2) can markedly enhance both experimental and spontaneous metastasis. In contrast to the metastasis results, there was no difference in either the in vitro growth rate or apparent in vivo tumorigenicity of RD and RDA2 cells.
