The Functioning Role of Biological Factors Involved in the Liver Metastasis Ability of Pancreatic Cancer

Tetsuji Sawada, Hitoshi Teraoka, Tamahiro Nishihara, Takeshi Sunami, Masakazu Yashiro, Yoshito Yamashita, Nobuya Yamada, Kiyoshi Maeda, Bunzo Nakata and Kosei Hirakawa

The First Department of Surgery, Osaka City University Medical School

We investigated the biological role of the expression of ICAM-1, which is an adhesion molecule involved in host immunodefense in the microenvironment, and of TGF-β1 in the liver metastasis ability of pancreatic cancer cells. The highly metastatic, SW1990 cells in a nude mouse liver metastasis model had the lowest expression of ICAM-1, and the adhesiveness and cytotoxicity of mononuclear leukocytes against SW1990 were suppressed. Treatment of pancreatic cancer cells with TGF-β1 decreased their expression of ICAM-1 and increased their invasiveness, and it enhanced the in vivo liver metastasis ability of SW1990 and CAPAN-2. These findings suggested that decreased cancer cell expression of ICAM-1 induced by various factors, such an TGF-β1, plays an important role by allowing cancer cells to escape from the immune defense system, and ICAM-1 gene transfection or anti-TGF-β1 antibody may be applicable as a means of inhibiting metastasis.

Key words
pancreatic cancer, ICAM-1, TGF-β1

Reprint requests
Tetsuji Sawada The First Department of Surgery, Osaka City University, Medical School, 1-4-3 Asahi-machi, Abeno-ku, Osaka, 545-8585 JAPAN

Accepted
December 22, 1999

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