Lydia Inés Puricelli

Lung cancer is the most frequent and one of the most deadly cancer types and is classified into small cell lung cancer and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ) regulates a wide array of cell functions and plays a major role in lung diseases, including NSCLC. TGFβ signals through the complex of TGFβ type I and type II receptors, triggering Smad and non-Smad signaling pathways such as PI3K/Akt and MEK1/ERK. We investigated the role of TGFβ1 on the progression of the murine lung adenocarcinoma cell line LP07. Furthermore, we undertook a retrospective study with tissue samples from stage I and II NSCLC patients to assess the clinical pathologic role and prognostic significance of TβRI expression. We demonstrated that although lung cancer cell monolayers responded to TGFβ1 anti-mitogenic effects and TGFβ1 pulse (24 h treatment) delayed tumor growth at primary site; a switch towards malignant progression upon TGFβ1 treatment was observed at the metastatic site. In our model, TGFβ1 modulated in vitro clonogenicity, protected against stress-induced apoptosis and increased adhesion, spreading, lung retention and metastatic outgrowth. PI3K and MEK1 signaling pathways were involved in TGFβ1-mediated metastasis stimulation. Several of these TGFβ responses were also observed in human NSCLC cell lines. In addition, we found that a higher expression of TβRI in human lung tumors is associated with poor patient’s overall survival by univariate analysis, while multivariate analysis did not reach statistical significance. Although additional detailed analysis of the endogenous signaling in vivo and in vitro is needed, these studies may provide novel molecular targets for the treatment of lung cancer.

Breast cancer progression and metastasis have been linked to abnormal signaling by transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) cytokines. In early-stage breast cancers, TGF-beta exhibits tumor suppressor activity by repressing cell proliferation and inducing cell death, whereas in advanced-stage tumors, TGF-beta promotes invasion and metastatic dissemination. The molecular mechanisms underlying pro-oncogenic activities of TGF-beta are not fully understood. The present study validates the role of TGF-beta signaling in cancer progression and explores mediators of pro-oncogenic TGF-beta activities using the LM3 mammary adenocarcinoma cell line, derived from a spontaneous murine mammary adenocarcinoma. Expression of kinase-inactive TGF-beta receptors decreased both basal and TGF-beta-induced invasion. Analysis of signal transduction mediators showed that p38MAPK and MEK contribute to TGF-beta stimulation of cell motility and invasion. TGF-beta disrupted the epithelial actin structures supporting cell-cell adhesions, and increased linear actin filaments. Moreover, MEK and p38MAPK pathways showed opposite effects on actin remodeling in response to TGF-beta. Blockade of Raf-MEK signaling enhanced TGF-beta induction of actin stress-fibers whereas p38MAPK inhibitors blocked this effect. A novel observation was made that TGF-beta rapidly activates the actin nucleation Arp2/3 complex. In addition, TGF-beta stimulated matrix metalloproteinase MMP-9 secretion via a MAPK-independent pathway. Experiments using syngeneic mice showed that kinase-inactive TGF-beta receptors inhibit the first stages of LM3 tumor growth in vivo. Our studies demonstrate that autocrine TGF-beta signaling contributes to the invasive behavior of mammary carcinoma cells. Moreover, we show that both MAPK-dependent and -independent pathways are necessary for TGF-beta-induced effects. Therefore, MEK-ERK and p38 MAPK pathways are potential venues for therapeutic intervention in pro-oncogenic TGF-beta signaling.

As 20% of stage I NSCLC patients develop recurrent and often incurable cancer, the identification of prognostic markers has a meaningful clinical application. The biological significance of steroid hormone and EGF receptors, able to regulate key physiological functions, remains elusive in NSCLC. Our aim was to investigate the prognostic input of estrogen receptors (ERα, ERβ), progesterone receptors (PR) and EGFR in tumors from 58 stage I NSCLC patients. Antigen expression was analyzed by immunohistochemistry. Prognostic evaluation was performed with the multivariate Cox model. We found that about 70 and 40% of samples expressed ERα or ERβ at cytoplasmic or nuclear level, respectively. Besides, only 12.1% of samples weakly expressed nuclear PR and 62.7% showed membrane EGFR staining. Correlation studies indicated an inverse association between EGFR expression and smoking status (p<0.01). Multivariate studies showed that the lack of nuclear ERβ or the loss of EGFR expression were independent prognosis markers associated with shorter overall survival. We also found that patients whose tumors were negative for these two biomarkers presented the worst outcome. In conclusion, our findings could be useful for selecting stage I NSCLC patients with poor prognosis to apply an earlier treatment that impacts on survival.

Objective: Our objective was to study the role of protein kinase C delta (PKCδ) in the progression of human pancreatic carcinoma. Methods: Protein kinase C delta expression in human ductal carcinoma (n = 22) was studied by immunohistochemistry. We analyzed the effect of PKCδ overexpression on in vivo and in vitro properties of human ductal carcinoma cell line PANC1. Results: Human ductal carcinomas showed PKCδ overexpression compared with normal counterparts. In addition, in vitro PKCδ-PANC1 cells showed increased anchorage-independent growth and higher resistance to serum starvation and to treatment with cytotoxic drugs. Using pharmacological inhibitors, we determined that phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase and extracellular receptor kinase pathways were involved in the proliferation of PKCδ-PANC1. Interestingly, PKCδ-PANC1 cells showed a less in vitro invasive ability and an impairment in their ability to migrate and to secrete the proteolytic enzyme matrix metalloproteinase-2. In vivo experiments indicated that PKCδ-PANC1 cells were more tumorigenic, as they developed tumors with a significantly lower latency and a higher growth rate with respect to the tumors generated with control cells. Besides, only PKCδ-PANC1 cells developed lung metastasis. Conclusion: Our results showed that the overexpression of PKCδ in PANC1 cells induced a more malignant phenotype in vivo, probably through the modulation of cell proliferation and survival, involving phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase and extracellular receptor kinase signaling pathways.

Background: The in vitro culture of insulinomas provides an attractive tool to study cell proliferation and insulin synthesis and secretion. However, only a few human beta cell lines have been described, with long-term passage resulting in loss of insulin secretion. Therefore, we set out to establish and characterize human insulin-releasing cell lines. Results: We generated ex-vivo primary cultures from two independent human insulinomas and from a human nesidioblastosis, all of which were cultured up to passage number 20. All cell lines secreted human insulin and C-peptide. These cell lines expressed neuroendocrine and islets markers, confirming the expression profile found in the biopsies. Although all beta cell lineages survived an anchorage independent culture, none of them were able to invade an extracellular matrix substrate. Conclusion: We have established three human insulin-releasing cell lines which maintain antigenic characteristics and insulin secretion profiles of the original tumors. These cell lines represent valuable tools for the study of molecular events underlying beta cell function and dysfunction.

The neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM) is involved in the intercellular junctions of neurons and glial cells. We investigated its relevance as a biomarker in gliomas which main characteristic is their high invasiveness. We studied by Western blot the pattern of serum NCAM bands in patients with gliomas (n = 34), with brain metastasis of different primary cancers (n = 27) and with benign brain tumors (n = 22)] compared with healthy controls (n = 69). For densitometric analysis NCAM bands ≥130 kDa (HMW) and P < 0.01). A similar pattern was found in patients with brain metastasis or brain benign tumors, suggesting that the pattern of serum NCAM bands would be useful to detect brain tumor pathology. On the other hand, serum NCAM expression was not associated with the main clinicopathological features of gliomas, including overall survival. Interestingly, we found that 9/12 patients with glioma showed a significant decrease in NCAM HMW/LMW ratio between 1–3 months after successful tumor removal. Thus, serum NCAM could be a useful marker for monitoring treatment. NCAM expression was also analyzed at tissular level in 59 glioma sections from paraffined tumors. We observed that NCAM immunostaining was inversely correlated with the histological grade of malignancy, remaining this association in a multivariate analysis. Besides, loss of NCAM staining was significantly associated with bad prognosis in an univariate analysis.

In the present work we used a murine mammary cancer model of two related adenocarcinomas with different lung metastasizing abilities, to compare their global gene expression profiles. Clontech Atlas mouse cDNA microarrays of primary cultured tumor cells were employed to identify genes that are modulated in the more metastatic variant MM3 relative to its parental tumor M3. A total of 88 from 1,176 genes were differentially expressed in MM3 primary cultures, most of them (n=86) were upregulated. Genes were grouped according to their functions as associated with signal transduction and transcription regulation (e.g. Stat1 and Zfp 92), with cell adhesion and motility (cadherin 1, fibronectin), with invasion and angiogenesis (uPA, 72 kDa MMP2), with the regulation of cell proliferation and cell death (cyclins G and A2, TNF), and also included growth factors and receptors, oncogenes and tumor suppressors genes (p107, TGFβ2, TBR-I, PDGFR). Only 2 genes, TTF1 and fibronectin (FN), showed a significant downregulation. Notably FN expression, loss of which has been associated with a malignant phenotype, was reduced about 19-fold in the more metastatic MM3 cells. Previously known differences in expression patterns associated with the metastatic capacity of MM3 and M3 adenocarcinomas, including downregulation of FN or upregulated expression of TGFβ and proteases, were confirmed by the array data. The fact that FN was one of the only two genes significantly down-regulated out of the 1,176 genes analyzed stresses the hypothesis that FN may behave as an important metastasis suppressor gene in mammary cancer.

Background and Objectives Therapy of colorectal tumors (CRC) based on histology and clinical factors is insufficient to predict the evolution of each patient. The finding of molecular abnormalities able to differentiate subgroups of patients with bad prognosis will improve our ability to treat them successfully. Our purpose was to analyze retrospectively the prognostic input of E-cadherin, β-catenin, metalloproteinases (MMPs) (7 and 9), and tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMPs) (1 and 2) in patients with a follow-up period of 5 years. Methods Antigen expression was analyzed by immunohistochemistry. Prognostic evaluation was performed with the multivariate proportional hazards model. Results We demonstrated a concomitant loss of E-cadherin and β-catenin at membranous level and an abnormal accumulation of nuclear β-catenin. Besides, we found that all MMPs and TIMPs studied were overexpressed in CRC tissue. There was no association between the expression of any of these molecules and the known clinical-pathological parameters employed in CRC pathology. A multivariate analysis demonstrated that the overall survival could be independently predicted by the loss of E-cadherin and the overexpression of TIMP-2. Conclusions The expression of E-cadherin and TIMP-2 could be relevant in determining the prognosis of CRC patients and providing a more accurate mechanism for their classification. J. Surg. Oncol. 2006;93: 151–160.

Background and Objectives: Therapy of malignant glioma tumors is based on histology and clinical factors. However, comparable lesions may correspond with important prognostic differences. Our purpose was to analyze retrospectively the prognostic input of platelet‐derived growth factor receptor (PDGF‐R), epidermal growth factor (EGF‐R), and bcl‐2 expression in 103 malignant gliomas from uniformly treated patients.Methods: The expression of the antigens was analyzed by immunohistochemistry (IHC). Prognostic evaluation was performed with the multivariate proportional hazards model. The follow‐up period lasted 19 (5–122) months for survivors.Results: We observed that almost 50% of gliomas showed high expression of PDGF‐R, while a lower expression of EGF‐R and bcl‐2 was found. No association between the main prognostic factors in malignant glioma (sex, age, histological grade, and Karnofsky score) and the labeling index (LI) of these antigens was observed. We found that only PDGF‐R and EGF‐R overexpression were associated with a shorter survival in patients with World Health Organization (WHO) II astrocytomas, being bothassociations independent of known prognostic factors, as shown by Cox model. Besides, we confirmed other authors' results that high histological grade and low performance score were associated with worse prognosis.Conclusions: PDGF‐R and EGF‐R expression could be relevant in determining the prognosis of low‐grade astrocytomas (LGAs) and in providing a more objective mechanism for their classification. J. Surg. Oncol. 2004;86:34–40.