Differential E-selectin-dependent adhesion efficiency in sublines of a human colon cancer exhibiting distinct metastatic potentials.

Previously we have shown that high metastatic colonic carcinoma cells express relatively more lamp molecules and sialyl Le(x) structures on the cell surface than their corresponding low metastatic counterparts (Saitoh, O., Wang, W.-L., Lotan, R., and Fukuda, M. (1992) J. Biol. Chem. 267, 5700-5711). In the present study, we extended these findings by testing whether these high and low metastatic colonic carcinoma cells differ in their adhesion efficiency to E-selectin-expressing cells. First, it was found that the high metastatic cells, as compared to their low metastatic counterparts, bind more efficiently to activated human endothelial cells that express E-selectin. This was also true when the adhesion was tested for Chinese hamster ovary cells stably expressing E-selectin. In addition, it was found that the high metastatic cells also adhere more efficiently to mouse endothelioma cells after activation with interleukin-1 beta. It was also shown that the adhesion can be inhibited by soluble lamp-1 or soluble leukosialin that contain sialy Le(x) termini. The inhibition was not, however, observed when these soluble glycoproteins lack sialyl Le(x) structures. The results indicate that the efficiency of the E-selectin-mediated binding of colonic carcinoma cells to human and mouse endothelial cells correlates with the metastatic potential of the cells and suggest that this adhesive event may be one of the critical factors for the metastatic spread of tumor cells. Soluble forms of leukosialin or lamp-1 may be useful as therapeutic agents for the inhibition of E-selectin-mediated binding to tumor cells.