Summary
The clinical benefit of heparin in cancer patients to prolong survival can be attributed
to non-anticoagulant mechanisms. Since adhesion molecules are crucially involved in
tumour cell metastasis, their inhibition offers an attractive approach for interfering
with the metastatic cascade. Heparin is known to attenuate metastasis in a selectin-dependent
manner and possessesa variety of additional effects that are thought to influence
tumour cell dissemination, proliferation, and angiogenesis. We investigated the adhesion
behaviour of B16F10 melanoma cells in vitro regarding selectin- and VLA-4/VCAM-1-mediated binding to get an insight into underlying
mechanisms of melanoma cell metastasis. We show that B16F10 cells display binding
ability to P- and L-selectin as well as to isolated platelets. In contrast, B16F10
cells did not adhere to immobilized P-selectin under flow. This contributes to recent
findings that elucidate a major role of platelet P-selectin for microemboli formation
and thus, facilitating metastasis. In contrast, B16F10 cells adhered to endothelial
cells under flow, which could partly be inhibited by a function-blocking anti-VCAM-1
mAb. To emphasizeVCAM-1 function, we analyzed cell adhesion at immobilizedVCAM-1 and
observed an integrin dependency. Inhibition experiments reveal that heparin influences
VLA-4-mediated binding pathways. By a combination of different techniques we prove
that the site of heparin action is ratherVLA-4 thanVCAM-1.To our knowledge, this is
the first time that heparin is shown to interfere with theVLA-4/VCAM-1 interaction
leading to the suggestion of a novel heparin target. Our results may contribute to
the understanding of how heparin exerts its anti-metastatic activity.
Keywords
Heparins - cell-cell interactions - integrins - cancer - melanoma