The neural cell adhesion molecule is involved in the metastatic capacity in a murine model of lung cancer.

Neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM) is involved in cell growth, migration, and differentiation. Its expression and/or polysialylation appear to be deregulated in many different cancer types. We employed the lung tumor cell line LP07, syngeneic in BALB/c mice to investigate the role of NCAM in malignant progression. LP07 cells express the three main NCAM isoforms, all of them polysialylated. This cells line, pretreated with an anti-NCAM antibody and inoculated intravenously (i.v.) into syngeneic mice, developed less and smaller lung metastases. In vitro studies showed that NCAM bound antibody inhibited cell growth, mainly due to an increase in apoptosis, associated with a decrease of cyclin D1 and enhanced expression of active caspase 3 and caspase 9. Anti-NCAM-treated LP07 cells showed impairment in their ability to migrate and adhere to several extracellular matrix components. Secreted uPA activity was also reduced. NCAM-140 knocked-down by siRNA in LP07 cells pretreated or not with anti-NCAM showed an impaired metastasizing ability upon i.v. inoculation into mice. These results suggest that anti-NCAM treatment could be mimicking homophilic trans-interactions and NCAM-140 knocked-down impairs heterophilic interactions, both leading to inhibition of metastatic dissemination. The involvement of NCAM in lung tumor progression was confirmed in human NSCLC tumors. Sixty percent of the cases expressed NCAM at tumor cell level. A multivariate analysis indicated that NCAM expression was associated with a shorter overall survival in this homogeneous series of Stages I and II NSCLC patients. NCAM may be able to modulate mechanisms involved in lung carcinoma progression and represents an attractive target to control metastatic progression.

Reactivity of tumor-draining lymph nodes and the nitric oxide pathway.

Regional lymph nodes are important in the generation of tumor-directed immune responses. The relationship between nitric oxide synthase (NOS) expression and the biological behavior of tumor-draining lymph node (TDLNs) cells in vivo was determined using a spontaneously arising BALB/c mammary adenocarcinoma S13. We first demonstrated a reduction of tumor size and tumor-induced angiogenesis by blocking NOS activity in vivo. TDLNs harvested from tumor-bearing mice (TBM) on day 16 after tumor implant, showed enhanced NOS activity and NOS expression compared to control nodes. Identification of the NOS isoforms present in TDLNs resulted in expression of neuronal NOS (nNOS), endothelial NOS (eNOS) and absence of inducible NOS (iNOS). TDLN cells admixed with tumor cells and inoculated into normal mice (Winn assay) induced a reduction of tumor growth although, when inoculated alone, were able to induce the formation of new blood vessels (angiogenesis). Our data indicate that the in vivo antitumor activity of TDLN cells is modulated by a balance between angiogenesis and antitumor effectors. In our model, when trafficking of leukocytes is obviated, the control of tumor growth by TDLN cells can be explained in part by an antitumor activity great enough to exceed the angiogenic component elicited by the same cells, leading to a reduction of tumor size.