Comparison of the chemotactic response to conditioned medium of BALB/c3T3 fibroblasts and their SV 40 transformants.

The chemotactic migration of transformed cells out of their tissue of origin might represent an essential component of tumor invasion and metastasis. In the Boyden chamber assay SV 40 virus-transformed BALB-c3T3 fibroblast (SV/3T3) showed an increased chemotactic response to fibroblasts-conditioned medium in comparison to non-transformed BALB/c3T3 cells. This was verified for a large range of incubation times and cell densities. Fibroblast-conditioned medium contains components of the extracellular matrix of connective tissue. Since organs rich in connective tissue are often the site of metastasis, the enhanced chemotaxis of virus-transformed cells to conditioned medium could contribute to explain the malignancy of these cells.