Inhibition of experimental pulmonary metastasis of mouse colon adenocarcinoma 26 sublines by a sialic acid:nucleoside conjugate having sialyltransferase inhibiting activity.

The total and sialidase-releasable sialic acid contents of murine colon adenocarcinoma 26 sublines of high (NL-17) and low (NL-44) metastatic potential were found to be positively correlated with their ability to undergo metastasis. Furthermore, sialyltransferase activity of intact NL-17 cells was higher than that of NL-44 cells. These findings suggest that sialic acid on the cell surface may play a role in the metastasis of these cells. Therefore, the effect of a sialyltransferase inhibitor, 5-fluoro-2',3'-isopropylidene-5'-O-(4-N-acetyl-2,4-dideoxy-3,6,7,8-tetra -O -acetyl-1-methoxycarbonyl-D-glycero-alpha-D-galactooctapyranosyl)u ridine (Kl-8110), on the experimental lung metastasis of NL-17 or NL-44 cells was examined. Kl-8110 inhibited the transfer of sialic acid to its endogenous acceptor in NL-17 and NL-44 cells. NL-17 or NL-44 cells were injected into the tail veins of mice, and the metastasis-inhibiting activity of Kl-8110 was evaluated on the basis of both the lung weight and the number of pulmonary surface nodules about 3 wk after the tumor cell injection and of the survival ratio of mice inoculated with the tumor cells. Pretreatment of tumor cells with Kl-8110 together with i.v. injection of Kl-8110 caused significant inhibition of pulmonary metastasis of both NL-17 and NL-44 cells. Inhibition of metastasis and prolongation of survival were also observed on i.v. injection of Kl-8110 without pretreatment of the tumor cells with Kl-8110, but the degree of inhibition was lower than that in the case of the two treatments together. Kl-8110 itself had neither cytostatic nor cytotoxic effects on NL-17 and NL-44 but reduced the retention of tumor cells in the lungs. This antimetastatic effect of Kl-8110 may be due to modification of the tumor cell surface resulting from inhibition of sialyltransferase by Kl-8110. In addition, a beta-linked sialic acid:nucleoside conjugate (Kl-8111) and an equimolar mixture of Kl-8110 and Kl-8111 (Kl-414) also inhibited the metastatic ability of NL cells to the same extent as Kl-8110 did.