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Carcinogenesis |
The Institute for Genomic Research, Rockville, Maryland 20850 [P. H., R. Q., R. G., K. A., S. D., J. E-H., C. G., N. U. N., A. I. S., V. S., N. H. L., J. Q.], and H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida 33612 [T. C., T. J. Y.]
| ABSTRACT |
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| INTRODUCTION |
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cDNA microarrays were used to generate a molecular fingerprint of gene expression patterns with the goal of elucidating changes that may contribute to the metastatic process. Genome sequencing and EST projects have provided a wealth of data to study the biology of tumor progression. Researchers have access to more than 2,000,000 ESTs representing greater than 80% of the estimated human genes. Fewer than 10,000 human genes however, have functionally annotated entries in GenBank. To best use these resources, the microarray technique presents parallel expression analysis of thousands of these genes in a single experiment without prior knowledge of gene function (9 , 10) .
An array of 19,200 clones selected using EST assemblies that comprise the TIGR HGI,5 was used to assess patterns of gene expression between low and high metastatic states of colon carcinomas. A comparison of transcriptional levels has identified 176 genes that appear to be differentially expressed (greater than 2-fold) in all highly metastatic cell lines relative to their reference. Included in the gene set are those previously known to possess altered patterns of expression in colon cancer as well as a large number with previously uncharacterized function. The identification of these additional genes is of tremendous importance because they provide potential new insights into cancer biology, they may allow a better understanding of pathways that regulate metastasis, and they yield gene expression patterns that may be diagnostic or prognostic of metastasis in colon cancer.
| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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Tissue Culture and Probe Preparation.
Tumor cell lines were maintained in RPMI 1640 (Life Technologies, Inc.) modified medium containing L-glutamine and supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum, 200 units/ml penicillin, and 200 µg/ml streptomycin. Cells were maintained in 150-mm culture dishes (Corning) at 37°C in 5% CO2. Total RNA was extracted from the cells using Triazol (Life Technologies, Inc.) and was used to prepare direct Cy3- and Cy5-labeled first-strand cDNA probes for hybridization as described previously (13)
. Before hybridization, slides were incubated in 1% BSA to block nonspecific hybridization to the glass surface; differentially labeled pooled probes were hybridized to microarray slides overnight and washed. Expression was assayed by measuring fluorescence intensities using the Genepix 4000 (Axon) dual-color confocal laser scanner; data were recorded as paired 16-bit TIFF images.
Image Processing and Data Analysis.
Images were analyzed to determine each spots background-subtracted integrated fluorescence intensity in both the Cy3 and Cy5 channels using TIGR Spotfinder.7
This software uses a dynamic thresholding algorithm to identify spots and calculate local background and intensities. For each array, expression ratios were normalized using an iterative mean log2(ratio) centering approach. Data from replica arrays were averaged and genes showing consistent differential expression across replicas were tallied for each pair of cell lines. For the KM12-derived lines, the intersection of the KM12SM and KM12L4A gene sets were identified. The intersection of those differentially expressed in the SW620/SW480 lines were also identified. Each of the clones representing differentially expressed genes on the arrays and selected for further evaluation were subjected to an additional round of sequence verification, with 100% validation of clone identity.
| RESULTS |
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To identify genes with differential expression profiles in colon cancer metastasis, we used the arrays to compare genetically related colon carcinoma cell lines. For each set of experiments, mRNA was extracted from the parental poorly metastatic KM12C cells, reverse transcribed, and labeled with Cy 3-dUTP. These were used as controls. Gene expression in KM12C was compared with that in the highly metastatic KM12L4A and KM12SM, the RNA of which was reverse transcribed and labeled with Cy 5-dUTP. Similarly, transcript levels of SW480 were compared with SW620. Relative expression was assayed by a two-color hybridization. Four replicates were performed for each experiment. For any pair of cell lines, genes exhibiting a consistent 2-fold up- or down-regulation across three or more replicas were considered significant. Consensus sets from each of the KM12 cell lines were then compared to generate a KM12-specific gene set. Finally, this set was cross-referenced with a consensus set derived from the SW480/SW620 cell lines to produce a final list of candidate metastasis-associated genes.
Of the 19,200 elements analyzed by this method, 176 genes appear to have differential expression patterns between the cellular phenotypes of low and high liver metastasis in the KM12 and SW cells (Fig. 1)
. Of these, mRNA levels for 121 genes are up-regulated and 55 genes are down-regulated. Included are 108 genes of known function and 68 genes of unknown function. Analysis of each individual set of experiments showed 2421 and 2834 genes showing differential expression patterns in the KM12L4A and KM12SM cell lines respectively. Of these, 1911 genes were differentially expressed in both metastatic variants (Fig. 1)
. The SW metastatic variant exhibited 1569 genes with altered patterns of expression as compared with its reference (Fig. 1)
. Overall, most of the genes exhibited an average of
2- to 4-fold change in relative expression. A small percentage of genes showed >5-fold change in expression levels. Relatively small incremental changes in gene expression are not surprising because progression to metastasis is the result of the cumulative accumulation of a number of spontaneous molecular changes, some of which may be subtle (15)
. By comparison, larger-fold differences would be expected when comparing normal mucosa to paired cancerous tissues.9
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| DISCUSSION |
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Genetic instability is a characteristic feature of CRCs (19) . Genes involved in DNA mismatch repair have long been associated with hereditary nonpolyposis CRCs (20) . A decrease in expression of the mutL homologues, hPMS1 and hPMS2 suggests that these cell lines exhibit a high level of microsatellite instability that is attributable to a lack of replication error repair activity. It is possible, in fact, that these cell lines were derived from patients with hereditary nonpolyposis CRC, or that this instability is a product of in vitro passage. Changes in expression of genes, such as Bub1 and Bub1B, that are involved in chromosomal instability were seen in the KM-derived and SW cell lines, respectively.
Angiogenesis.
Hypoxia is a common occurrence in tumors and arises from a lack of blood supply to rapidly proliferating cells (21)
. Once the tumor mass reaches a diameter of
2 mm, establishment of new vascular system is essential for its survival. Until then, endurance in hypoxic conditions is an important factor for tumor progression. Transformation studies have earlier shown the regulation of individual genes in tumor progression (21)
. Here we have comprehensively shown the regulation of glycolytic enzymes during metastasis. Enolase (
) showed the most dramatic increase in expression, (
6-fold) in all three highly metastatic cell lines and could potentially be used as a marker for metastasis in colon carcinomas. There was a general up-regulation of genes involved in glycolysis in the KM12-derived cell lines, which suggested the need for the glycolytic pathway as an alternate energy source for cell survival during liver metastasis.
The KM12 and SW cell lines showed varied patterns of growth factor expression. High levels of IGF-I have been associated with increased risk of cancer (22) . Whereas the KM12 metastatic cell lines showed elevated levels of IGF-I to the order of 3.7-fold, the SW cell lines did not show any significant change in IGF-I expression. Similarly, the growth-enhancing properties of transforming growth factor ß during angiogenesis in colon cancers have been well documented. Here too, the SW620 cells did not show any altered patterns of expression. Although IGF-I and transforming growth factor ß may be used as prognostic markers in carcinomas (23 , 24) , their significance as diagnostic or prognostic markers for metastasis would be questionable.
Genes associated with hepatomas were also represented in the expression profile. The gene encoding for the hepatocellular carcinoma-associated protein is overexpressed
10-fold in all three metastatic cell lines. Differential expression of hepatoma-derived growth factor and hepatocyte nuclear factor 3ß are specific only to the liver-metastatic KM12 variants and not to the lymph node-metastatic SW cells, which indicates that these genes may be more specific to liver metastasis whereas the hepatocellular carcinoma-associated protein may be associated with general metastasis of colon carcinomas.
Tumor Invasion.
Among all of the genes differentially expressed, those involved in cytoskeletal organization and the extracellular matrix formation such as actin-ß, tubulin ßd1, and profilin II were most significant. For a tumor to become invasive, it must pass through the muscularis mucosa and infiltrate the subserosal layer in which terminal lymphatics reside. Subsequently, genes that are involved in breaking the barriers of cellular adhesion play an important role in tumor invasiveness. In general, there was no significant change in expression of homotypic cell adhesion molecules such as CEACAM7 and the nonspecific cross-reacting antigen (NCA) molecules.
Gross abnormalities were also observed in expression of genes involved in the formation of cytoskeletal architecture and the extracellular matrix. The actin cytoskeleton is the basic machinery that makes cells motile, a characteristic property of invasive cells. Evidence for dynamic actin-based cytoskeletal motility in the metastatic cell lines comes from differential expression of genes that are involved in actin polymerization such as actin-capping proteins, which showed an
6-fold increase in expression.
Signal Transduction and Cancer Metastasis.
Cross-talk between different pathways makes intracellular signal transduction a challenging area for cancer research. The molecular components of signal transduction that lead to tumorigenicity are poorly understood. One gene that is consistently overexpressed across all three cell lines is a novel G-protein-coupled receptor, GPCR48 (Fig. 2)
. The function of this protein is unknown. However, its expression pattern in metastasis could make this a useful marker for colon cancer metastasis. In addition to the protein phosphatases and protein kinases, a large number of oncogenes such as the set oncogenes and the v-Yes oncogenes show increased expression. Proto-oncogene c-k-ras, a highly characterized indicator of carcinomas, showed increased expression in the KM12 cell lines. The SW480 cells contain a point mutation in the ki-ras gene that results in activated ras gene product (25)
. No significant change in expression of c-k-ras was detected on going from the low metastatic cells to their highly metastatic SW620 variant. Other proto-oncogenes such as N-ras and rhoA also exhibit elevated levels in all highly metastatic variants. Recently, overexpression of RhoC has been demonstrated to stimulate metastasis in melanoma cells (26)
. Our findings provide evidence that other members of the Rho family of small GTPases may contribute to the process of metastasis.
Apart from the known genes, 39% of the genes that are differentially expressed have no assigned functional role. A hypothetical protein (THC347434) is consistently underrepresented in the highly metastatic variants (Fig. 2)
. Sequence analysis of the gene using SMART protein prediction tools (27)
, revealed that it contains multiple zinc finger domains, which suggests it may encode a DNA-binding protein. Although further work will be required to fully characterize this and other genes, their patterns of expression may make them useful as markers of metastasis.
To demonstrate the utility of cell line analysis as a model for understanding clinical prognosis, we selected two previously uncharacterized transcripts, THC511611 and THC559091 (KIAA0746), which were shown to be down- and up-regulated, respectively. These were then used to measure relative expression in paired samples of normal and tumor tissue (Fig. 3)
. Because these analyses again confirmed the results obtained from the arrays, we then used KIAA0746 to probe a tumor progression blot to characterize its expression through tumor progression and to assess its potential utility as a marker for metastasis (Fig. 4)
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| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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| FOOTNOTES |
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1 Supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute [NCI CA85052-01A1 and NCI CA85429-01 (to T. J. Y.) and NCI CA77049-02 and NCI 6120-119-L0-A (to J. Q.)], from the American Cancer Society [ACS RPG-99-099-01-MGO (to T. J. Y.)], the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke [NINDS NS-35231 (to N. H. L.)], and the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute [NHLBI HL-59781 ( to N. H. L.)]. ![]()
2 Present address: GlaxoSmithKline, King of Prussia, PA 19406. ![]()
3 To whom requests for reprints should be addressed, at E-mail: yeatman{at}moffitt.usf.edu; or johnq{at}tigr.org ![]()
4 The abbreviations used are: CRC, colorectal cancer; EST, expressed sequence tag; HGI, Human Gene Index; TIGR, The Institute for Genomic Research; THC, tentative human consensus (sequence); IGF-I, insulin-like growth factor I. ![]()
5 Internet address: http://www.tigr.org/tdb/tgi.shtml. ![]()
6 Internet address: http://www.tigr.org/tdb/hgi/hgi.html. ![]()
7 Internet address: http://cancer.tigr.org/tools/. ![]()
8 Summary information for the array can be found at http://cancer.tigr.org/data/Hum19k_1. ![]()
9 The list of genes, with average measured levels of expression can be found online at http://cancer.tigr.org/data. ![]()
Received 6/ 1/01. Accepted 8/28/01.
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