Migration and metalloproteinases determine the invasive potential of mouse melanoma cells, but not melanin and telomerase.

The biological characteristic cell locomotion and invasion, melanin content, metalloproteinases and telomerase activity were studied in a parental mouse melanoma cell line B16 and two descendents B16BL6 and B16F10. The invasive potential of melanoma cells was assayed in a transwell cell culture chamber. Melanin content was determined by the absorbance value at 470 nm per 10(6) cells. Tumor cells migration within the 3-D collagen matrix was microscopically recorded with a time-lapse video recorder and analyzed by computer-assisted cell tracking. Gelatin zymography was adopted to assay the metalloproteinases secretion. A polymerase chain reaction-based telomeric repeat amplification protocol (TRAP) was used for measuring telomerase activity. The results demonstrated that B16BL6 and B16F10 cells were highly invasive compared to B16 cells, but the melanin content of B16F10 was very low. B16F10 and B16BL6 were hypermotile and secreted much more metalloproteinases than B16. No differences were observed in telomerase activity among the three melanoma cell lines. Invasion of mouse melanoma was closely correlated to tumor cell migration and secretion of metalloproteinases. Melanin content and telomerase activity were phenotypically not related to invasiveness in these three mouse melanoma cell lines.