Neurotrophic Factor Derived Invasion of Pancreatic Cancer

Yuji Okada, Hiromitsu Takeyama, Mikinori Sato, Tadao Manabe

First Department of Surgery, Nagoya City University Medical School

Pancreatic cancer characteristically has a high incidence of neural invasion, leading to a pessimistic prognosis of a curative operation. We have recently examined the possibility that trophic action of GDNF (glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor) induces the directed migration of human pancreatic tumor cells toward neural tissues, by using an in vitro invasion assay for assaying chemotaxis and chemokinesis. In the invasion assay, marked migration of pancreatic cancer cells was induced by cocultivation with human glioma cells capable of producing GDNF and its extracellular secretion. Anti-GDNF antibody suppressed a majority of the migratory activity in the conditioned medium of glioma cells. The results led us to postulate that human pancreatic tumor cells expressing a c-ret proto-oncogene invade human ganglions along a concentration of GDNF, produced by neural tissues.

Key words
pancreatic cancer, tumor invasion

Reprint requests
Yuji Okada First Department of Surgery, Nagoya City University Medical School
1 Kawasumi, Mizuho-cho, Mizuho-ku, Nagoya, 467-0001 JAPAN

Accepted
December 3, 1997

To read the PDF file you will need Abobe Reader installed on your computer.