Repression of a malignant cell-substratum adhesion phenotype by inhibiting the production of the anti-adhesive proteoglycan, PG-M/versican.

Malignantly transformed cells usually display a rosette-like morphology of substratum adhesions (called podosomes) and disorganized microfilaments, and are often associated with elevated production of chondroitin sulphate. We previously showed that many tissues and cells express alternatively spliced multiforms of the large chondroitin sulphate proteoglycan termed PG-M (versican is one of the short transcripts). Since PG-M/versican inhibits many types of cell-substratum adhesion and is found to be excluded from focal contacts of cultured fibroblasts, it is likely that this proteoglycan is generally involved in regulating cell-substratum adhesion. We report here that PG-M/versican is selectively excluded from podosomes of human osteosarcoma cells and that specific inhibition of its biosynthesis by an antisense method suppresses such a malignant cell-adhesive phenotype. The results support the idea that PG-M/versican acts as an anti-adhesive molecule and raise the possibility that PG-M/versican controls one type of cancer cell behaviour.