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Expression Level of the nm23 Gene in Clonal Populations of Metastatic Murine and Human Neoplasms¹

Department of Cell Biology, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas 77030

The purpose of this study was to determine whether nm23 steady-state mRNA expression levels correlate with metastatic potential of mouse K-1735 melanoma cells, human KM12 colon cancer cells, and human SN12 renal cancer cells. Since neoplasms are heterogeneous and contain subpopulations of cells with different metastatic potentials, we analyzed multiple sets of nonmetastatic and metastatic clones isolated from each neoplasm. In addition, we also examined nine somatic cell hybrids produced by the fusion of nonmetastatic and metastatic K-1735 clones. In the mouse melanoma, we found heterogeneity in nm23-1 steady-state expression levels among the clones and hybrids that did not correlate with their metastatic phenotype. Clones isolated from human colon or renal carcinomas expressed similar levels of nm23-HI regardless of metastatic potential in nude mice. All of the human tumor cells were heterozygous for the nm23-HI-specific allelic DNA fragments, with no allelic deletions or gross alterations detected. Since the failure of tumor cells to produce metastasis can be due to multiple deficiencies, these data stress the importance of using independent clones with different metastatic potentials for the analysis of gene regulation of this process.

¹ Supported in part by Cancer Center Support Core Grant CA16672 and Grant R35-CA42107 (I. J. F.) from the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, and Postdoctoral Fellowship Grant PF-3446 (R. R.) from the American Cancer Society.

² To whom requests for reprints should be addressed, at the Department of Cell Biology, Box 173, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, Houston, TX 77030.

Received 4/ 3/92. Accepted 8/28/92.