Abstract #5009: In vivo gene transfer between color-coded interacting human osteosarcoma cells is associated with transfer of enhanced metastatic potential

Abstract

Using color-coded imaging with green fluorescent protein (GFP) and red fluorescent protein (RFP), we report here the imaging of the in vivo interaction between two human osteosarcoma cell lines with vastly different potential for pulmonary metastases. These cell lines comprise the 143B-GFP line with high metastatic potential and MNNG/HOS-RFP with low metastatic potential. Both cell lines are subclones derived from the TE85 human osteosarcoma cell line. The cells were transplanted individually or together in the tibia in nude mice. When the mixture of MNNG/HOS-RFP and 143B-GFP was transplanted in the tibia, the number of lung metastases of MNNG/HOS-RFP increased eight-fold compared to MNNG/HOS-RFP transplanted alone (P=0.005). In contrast, no enhancement of MNNG/HOS-RFP occurred when MNNG/HOS-RFP and 143B-GFP were transplanted separately in the right and left tibiae. This result suggests that 143B-GFP increased the metastatic potential of MNNG/HOS-RFP within the mixed tumor. We demonstrated in vivo transfer of Ki-ras gene from 143B-GFP to MNNG/HOS-RFP which may confer the increased metastatic potential to MNNG/HOS-RFP from 143B-GFP. These data suggests the possible role of gene transfer in enhancing the metastatic potential of cancer cells. The data also demonstrates the power of color-coded imaging to visualize cancer cell / cancer cell interaction.

Citation Information: In: Proc Am Assoc Cancer Res; 2009 Apr 18-22; Denver, CO. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; 2009. Abstract nr 5009.