Study of the Mechanism of Invasion and Metastasis in Pancreatic Cancer: Analysis of Cancer Cell Dissociation Factor

Hiroshi Egami, Naoko Hayashi, Takashi Kurizaki, Mikio Kai, Eiji Takai, Yasuhiro Tamori, Junji Akagi, Masahiko Hirota and Michio Ogawa

Department of Surgery II, Kumamoto University Medical School

Pancreatic cancer has the worst prognosis of any neoplasm, one reason being that it has an extremely high potential for invasion and metastasis. Two pancreatic cancer cell lines, the highly invasive and metastatic cell line PC-1·0 and the weakly invasive and rarely metastatic cell line PC-1, were established from a pancreatic ductal carcinoma induced by N-nitrosobis (2-oxopropyl) amine in a Syrian golden hamster. A soluble proteinous factor called dissociation factor (DF), which can induce dissociation of cancer cell colonies was found in PC-1·0-cell conditioned medium. DF has been partially purified, and analysis of its amino acid sequence revealed that DF is a protein with an amino acid sequence similar to that of 1) a new type of metalloproteinase, or 2) Fc binding protein with mucin-like structure, with an approximate molecular weight of 50kD. Study of its biological activity showed that partially purified DF can induce not only cancer cell dissociation, but cell motility, selective cell adhesion to fibronectin, and chemoinvasion in vitro. Based on the results of this study, DF seems likely to have a role in cancer cell invasion and metastasis in pancreatic cancer.

Key words
cancer cell dissociation factor (DF), metastasis, pancreatic cancer

Reprint requests
Hiroshi Egami Department of Surgery II, Kumamoto University Medical School, Honjo 1-1-1, Kumamoto, 860-8556 JAPAN

Accepted
December 22, 1999

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