Establishment and characterization of human gastric carcinoma lines with high metastatic potential in the liver: changes in integrin expression associated with the ability to metastasize in the liver of nude mice.

There is a need to establish animal models which are suitable for investigation of human gastric cancer metastasis to the liver. To this end, a human gastric carcinoma line, AZ521 was injected into the spleens of nude mice. Cells from the few liver metastatic foci of injected AZ521 were expanded "in vitro" and subsequently injected into the spleens of nude mice. By repeating these procedures three times, we were able to obtain a cell line, designated as AZ-H3c, with high metastatic potential in nude mice. Liver metastasis developed in 15 of 21 (71%) animals injected with AZ-H3c, but only in 14% of those injected with parental AZ521. Further, AZ-H3c caused faster tumor development than did AZ521. However, the primary AZ-H3c tumors and liver metastatic AZ-H3c tumors showed essentially the same histological appearance. We also analyzed the cell surface expression of adhesion molecules. The data showed that the expression of VLA-1, VLA-2, VLA-3, VLA-4, VLA-5 was enhanced in AZ-H3c. In contrast, the expression of VLA-6, (alpha(v)beta3), E-cadherin, ICAM-1 and LFA-1 was reduced in this high-metastatic line. These results suggest that (beta1) integrins play an important role in the liver metastasis of human gastric carcinoma cells. Our high-metastatic line should be useful for studies aimed at the prevention of liver metastasis.