Interaction between prostate cancer cells and prostate fibroblasts promotes accumulation and proteolytic processing of basement membrane proteins.

BACKGROUND: Tumor microenvironment or stroma has the potency to regulate the behavior of malignant cells. Fibroblast-like cells are abundant in tumor stroma and they are also responsible for the synthesis of many extracellular matrix components. Fibroblast-cancer cell interplay can modify the functions of both cell types. METHODS: We applied mass spectrometry and proteomics to unveil the matrisome in 3D spheroids formed by DU145 prostate cancer cells, PC3 prostate cancer cells, or prostate-derived fibroblasts. Similarly, DU145/fibroblast and PC3/fibroblast coculture spheroids were also analyzed. Western blot analysis and immunofluorescence were used to confirm the presence of specific proteins in spheroids. Cancer dissemination was studied by utilizing "out of spheroids" migration and invasion assays. RESULTS: In the spheroid model cancer cell-fibroblast interplay caused remarkable changes in the extracellular matrix and accelerated the invasion of DU145 cells. Fibroblasts produced structural matrix proteins, growth factors, and matrix metalloproteinases. In cancer cell/fibroblast cocultures basement membrane components, including laminins (α3, α5, ß2, and ß3), heparan sulfate proteoglycan (HSPG2 gene product), and collagen XVIII accumulated in a prominent manner when compared with spheroids that contained fibroblasts or cancer cells only. Furthermore, collagen XVIII was intensively processed to different endostatin-containing isoforms by cancer cell-derived cathepsin L. CONCLUSIONS: Fibroblasts can promote carcinoma cell dissemination by several different mechanisms. Extracellular matrix and basement membrane proteins provide attachment sites for cell locomotion promoting adhesion receptors. Growth factors and metalloproteinases are known to accelerate cell invasion. In addition, cancer cell-fibroblast interplay generates biologically active fragments of basement membrane proteins, such as endostatin.

Integrin α2ß1 decelerates proliferation, but promotes survival and invasion of prostate cancer cells.

High expression level of integrin α2ß1 is a hallmark of prostate cancer stem cell like cells. The role of this collagen receptor is controversial since it is down regulated in poorly differentiated carcinomas, but concomitantly proposed to promote metastasis. Here, we show that docetaxel resistant DU145 prostate cancer cells express high levels of α2ß1 and that α2ß1High subpopulation of DU145 cells proliferates slower than the cells representing α2ß1Low subpopulation. To further study this initial observation we used Crispr/Cas9 technology to create an α2ß1 negative DU145 cell line. Furthermore, we performed rescue experiment by transfecting α2 knockout cells with vector carrying α2 cDNA or with an empty vector for appropriate control. When these two cell lines were compared, α2ß1 positive cells proliferated slower, were more resistant to docetaxel and also migrated more effectively on collagen and invaded faster through matrigel or collagen. Integrin α2ß1 was demonstrated to be a positive regulator of p38 MAPK phosphorylation and a selective p38 inhibitor (SB203580) promoted proliferation and inhibited invasion. Effects of α2ß1 integrin on the global gene expression pattern of DU145 cells in spheroid cultures were studied by RNA sequencing. Integrin α2ß1 was shown to regulate several cancer progression related genes, most notably matrix metalloproteinase-1 (MMP-1), a recognized invasion promoting protein. To conclude, the fact that α2ß1 decelerates cell proliferation may explain the dominance of α2ß1 negative/low cells in primary sites of poorly differentiated carcinomas, while the critical role of α2ß1 integrin in invasion stresses the importance of this adhesion receptor in cancer dissemination.