Patients with metastatic melanoma have a poor median rate of survival. It is therefore necessary to increase our knowledge about melanoma cell dissemination which includes extravasation, where cancer ...cells cross the endothelial barrier. Extravasation is well understood during travelling of white blood cells, and involves integrins such as LFA-1 (composed of two chains, CD11a and CD18) expressed by T cells, while ICAM-1 is induced during inflammation by endothelial cells. Although melanoma cell lines cross endothelial cell barriers, they do not express LFA-1. We therefore hypothesized that melanoma-endothelial cell co-culture might induce the LFA-1/ICAM ligand/receptor couple during melanoma transmigration.
A transwell approach has been used as well as blocking antibodies against CD11a, CD18 and ICAM-1. Data were analyzed with an epifluorescence microscope. Fluorescence intensity was quantified with the ImageJ software.
We show here that HUVEC-conditioned medium induce cell-surface expression of LFA-1 on melanoma cell lines. Similarly melanoma-conditioned medium activates ICAM-1 expression in endothelial cells. Accordingly blocking antibodies of ICAM-1, CD11a or CD18 strongly decrease melanoma transmigration. We therefore demonstrate that melanoma cells can cross endothelial monolayers in vitro due to the induction of ICAM-1 and LFA-1 occurring during the co-culture of melanoma and endothelial cells. Our data further suggest a role of LFA-1 and ICAM-1 in the formation of melanoma cell clumps enhancing tumor cell transmigration.
Melanoma-endothelial cell co-culture induces LFA-1 and ICAM-1 expression, thereby favoring in vitro melanoma trans-migration.
(TYMV) is a positive-strand RNA virus infecting plants. The TYMV 140K replication protein is a key organizer of viral replication complex (VRC) assembly, being responsible for recruitment of the ...viral polymerase and for targeting the VRCs to the chloroplast envelope where viral replication takes place. However, the structural requirements determining the subcellular localization and membrane association of this essential viral protein have not yet been defined. In this study, we investigated determinants for the
chloroplast targeting of the TYMV 140K replication protein. Subcellular localization studies of deletion mutants identified a 41-residue internal sequence as the chloroplast targeting domain (CTD) of TYMV 140K; this sequence is sufficient to target GFP to the chloroplast envelope. The CTD appears to be located in the C-terminal extension of the methyltransferase domain-a region shared by 140K and its mature cleavage product 98K, which behaves as an integral membrane protein during infection. We predicted the CTD to fold into two amphipathic α-helices-a folding that was confirmed
by circular dichroism spectroscopy analyses of a synthetic peptide. The importance for subcellular localization of the integrity of these amphipathic helices, and the function of 140K/98K, was demonstrated by performing amino acid substitutions that affected chloroplast targeting, membrane association and viral replication. These results establish a short internal α-helical peptide as an unusual signal for targeting proteins to the chloroplast envelope membrane, and provide new insights into membrane targeting of viral replication proteins-a universal feature of positive-strand RNA viruses.
The aggressiveness of melanoma tumors is likely to rely on their well-recognized heterogeneity and plasticity. Melanoma comprises multi-subpopulations of cancer cells some of which may possess stem ...cell-like properties. Although useful, the sphere-formation assay to identify stem cell-like or tumor initiating cell subpopulations in melanoma has been challenged, and it is unclear if this model can predict a functional phenotype associated with aggressive tumor cells.
We analyzed the molecular and functional phenotypes of melanoma spheroids formed in neural crest cell medium. Whether from metastatic or advanced primary tumors, spheroid cells expressed melanoma-associated markers. They displayed higher capacity to differentiate along mesenchymal lineages and enhanced expression of SOX2, NANOG, KLF4, and/or OCT4 transcription factors, but not enhanced self-renewal or tumorigenicity when compared to their adherent counterparts. Gene expression profiling attributed a neural crest cell signature to these spheroids and indicated that a migratory/invasive and immune-function modulating program could be associated with these cells. In vitro assays confirmed that spheroids display enhanced migratory/invasive capacities. In immune activation assays, spheroid cells elicited a poorer allogenic response from immune cells and inhibited mitogen-dependent T cells activation and proliferation more efficiently than their adherent counterparts. Our findings reveal a novel immune-modulator function of melanoma spheroids and suggest specific roles for spheroids in invasion and in evasion of antitumor immunity.
The association of a more plastic, invasive and evasive, thus a more aggressive tumor phenotype with melanoma spheroids reveals a previously unrecognized aspect of tumor cells expanded as spheroid cultures. While of limited efficiency for melanoma initiating cell identification, our melanoma spheroid model predicted aggressive phenotype and suggested that aggressiveness and heterogeneity of melanoma tumors can be supported by subpopulations other than cancer stem cells. Therefore, it could be constructive to investigate melanoma aggressiveness, relevant to patients and clinical transferability.
Melanoma tumor cells shift between proliferative and invasive states based on their plasticity and microenvironmental conditions. Our team has shown that melanoma cells, grown as spheroids in a ...neural cell crest medium, polarize toward an invasive phenotype, characterized by a higher motility, a poor proliferation rate and a gain of pluripotency gene expression (Nanog and Oct4) when compared with cells grown in two dimensions in a serum-contaning medium. In agreement with the phenotypic switching hypothesis, most of these features are reversible. Microarray studies comparing two- vs. three-dimensional cultures revealed the downregulation of a polycomb-like protein, PHF19 (PHD finger protein 19), in the spheroids. As Polycomb proteins are involved in the epigenetic control of gene expression, we hypothesized that PHF19 might play a role in the switch between proliferative and invasive phenotypes. In this report, we show that PHF19 silencing reduces the cell proliferation rate and increases the transendothelial migration capacities of melanoma cell lines. However, PHF19 does not modulate the transcription level of Oct4 and Nanog. In the search of an upstream transcriptional regulator of the above genes, we identified the Akt signaling cascade as an inhibitor of Oct4 and Nanog expression and an activator for PHF19 expression. Through chromatin immunoprecipitation, we further provide evidence that phospho-Akt is part of the transcriptional complex associated to the promoters of all three genes. Our data therefore indicate the role of PHF19 and its upstream regulator, Akt, in the phenotype switch of melanoma cells from proliferative to invasive states.
Purpose
Melanoma tumors are highly heterogeneous and can undergo phenotypic modifications depending on their plasticity and the microenvironment, with shifts between proliferative and invasive ...states. We have shown that melanoma cells, grown as spheroids in a neural crest cell medium, polarize toward an invasive and motile phenotype, in agreement with transcriptomic modulations, including the up-regulation of Nanog and Oct4. Overexpression of these genes was shown to be associated with poor prognosis and metastatic forms of some cancers. We thus investigated implication of Nanog and Oct4, two embryonic transcription factors, in melanoma motility.
Methods
Our team used stable transfection of Nanog or Oct4 in A375 melanoma cell line to investigate motility in a wound healing assay and a transendothelial migration assay. Using semiquantitative RT-PCR, expression of two gene panels involved either in mesenchymal motility or in amoeboid migration was studied.
Results
Strongly enhanced capacities of motility and extravasation were observed with cells overexpressing Oct4 and Nanog. The A375 cell line has been described as having a mesenchymal migration type. However, in the Oct4 and Nanog transfectants, several amoeboid migration markers are strongly induced. Accordingly, amoeboid migration inhibitors decrease significantly the transmigration of Oct4- and Nanog-expressing cells through endothelial cells.
Conclusions
We propose here that Nanog and Oct4 pluripotency marker expression in melanoma cells increases the transmigration capacity of these cells through the gain of amoeboid motility, leading to higher invasiveness and aggressiveness.
The class II transactivator (CIITA) is the master regulator of MHC class II molecules (MHC II). In melanoma, the MHC II are constitutively expressed due to an abnormal transcription of CIITA from its ...promoter III (pIII), and requires the presence of a 1‐kb enhancer located upstream from this latter. Since mitogen‐activated protein kinases (MAPK) have been shown to be activated in most melanomas, we sought to analyze their possible involvement in CIITA expression. Using chemical inhibitors and dominant‐negative constructs of MAPK‐ERK kinase (Mek1) and MAPK‐JNK, we evidenced the inhibition of MHC II and CIITA expression in melanoma cell lines displaying activated MAPK. Transcriptional regulation by MAPK is known to involve the AP‐1 transcription factor family. Sequence analysis revealed an AP‐1‐responsive motif in the enhancer of CIITA pIII at –5954/–5947 from the site of transcription initiation. Its mutagenesis reduced CIITA expression four‐ to fivefold in melanoma cell lines and alleviated the effect of dominant‐negative constructs of the MAPK pathway. Together, our findings demonstrate that MAPK‐ERK and MAPK‐JNK are regulators of CIITA transcription in melanoma, and pinpoint an AP‐1‐responsive site in the CIITA gene pIII. This should have considerable impact on our understanding of the physio‐pathologic expression of MHC II.
Summary
One of the main steps of metastasis is extravasation, a phenomenon well described in lymphocytes but remaining to be fully uncovered for melanoma. Junctional adhesion molecules (JAMs) control ...the transendothelial migration of leukocytes. To date, the role of the JAM proteins, notably JAM‐A and JAM‐C, has not been examined in melanoma. Here, we compared two melanoma tumor cell lines, A375 and SLM8 cells, the A375 cell line being four times more efficient than the SLM8 cells in the crossing of the endothelial monolayer. We show evidence of the differential expression of JAM‐A and JAM‐C in these cell lines with JAM‐C mainly expressed in the A375 cell line, and JAM‐A detected preferentially in the SLM8 cells. To further dissect the respective roles of these proteins, we used both siRNA and blocking antibodies to decrease JAM‐A and JAM‐C expression.
Hypoxia is a major feature of the solid tumor microenvironment and is known to be associated with tumor progression and poor clinical outcome. Recently, we reported that hypoxia protects human ...non-small cell lung tumor cells from specific lysis by stabilizing hypoxia-inducible factor-1α and inducing STAT3 phosphorylation. In this study, we show that NANOG, a transcription factor associated with stem cell self renewal, is a new mediator of hypoxia-induced resistance to specific lysis. Our data indicate that under hypoxic conditions, NANOG is induced at both transcriptional and translational levels. Knockdown of the NANOG gene in hypoxic tumor cells is able to significantly attenuate hypoxia-induced tumor resistance to CTL-dependent killing. Such knockdown correlates with an increase of target cell death and an inhibition of hypoxia-induced delay of DNA replication in these cells. Interestingly, NANOG depletion results in inhibition of STAT3 phosphorylation and nuclear translocation. To our knowledge, this study is the first to show that hypoxia-induced NANOG plays a critical role in tumor cell response to hypoxia and promotes tumor cell resistance to Ag-specific lysis.
Melanoma tumors have been shown to comprise both invasive and proliferative cell subpopulations. These populations are highly plastic, thus hampering full characterization and therapeutic targeting ...of dormant and partially dedifferentiated invasive cells. We have reported, previously, that melanoma cells grown in a serum-free neural crest medium, in which they propagate as spheroids, show higher invasiveness and increased immune escape. In addition, in spheroids, we showed the increased expression of several genes which are involved in pluripotency, differentiation, and invasion. We therefore proposed that these culture conditions favor the polarization of proliferative melanoma cells toward an invasive state. As plasticity may suggest a reversible polarization, the aim of this report is to assess the transient phenotype of invasive cells generated through this procedure. We provide evidence that spheroid cells mimic dormant populations, and that this phenotype is fully reversible when cells are reintroduced into culture media that contain serum in which they grow as a monolayer. We also show that most transcriptional deregulations can be reversed. To further explain this plasticity in melanoma cells, we explored the epigenetic status of four gene promoters, assuming changes in acetylation or dimethylation on histone 3. We show reversible modifications on lysine 9 and lysine 4. We propose that spheroids allow the transient polarization of melanoma cells toward enhanced dormancy, loss of differentiation, and invasiveness, thereby reproducing the properties and plasticity of invasive subpopulations in melanoma tumors. This in-vitro model will allow further characterization and targeting of melanoma invasive cell populations.
The class II transactivator (CIITA) controls both the constitutive and IFN‐γ inducible expression of HLA‐D genes. In addition, through the squelching of another transactivator CREB‐binding protein, ...CIITA was more recently shown to have a wider cellular function, including cell cycle control or cellular response to IFN‐γ and IL‐4. However, due to its low expression level, its analysis mainly relies on the study of recombinant overexpressed forms of the protein. We report here the analysis of native CIITA in various cell types. We first show the precise timing of CIITA protein expression in a fibroblast cell line in response to IFN‐γ. This expression is observed 2 h after the cytokine addition with a peak of expression ranging from 16 to 24 h. We next show the existence of two major isoforms of the CIITA protein differentially expressed in fibroblast, B lymphocyte or melanoma cell lines. We present the first demonstration that these isoforms originate from alternative translation initiation codons. We finally show that CIITA isoforms translocate to the nucleus with an apparently similar efficiency. Our data therefore demonstrate the existence of CIITA isoforms whose respective ratio depends on the cell type examined. However, we present evidence for a modulation of this ratio in a melanoma cell line with an abnormal constitutive expression of MHC class II molecules.
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