The second commonest cause of cancer death in the Western world is attributed to prostate cancer (Jensen et al, 1990). It is well documented that prostatic carcinoma shows a predilection to metastasize to the bone marrow (Jacobs, 1983). Metastatic prostate cancer remains an incurable disease and as such, is a massive clinical problem. There is clearly a need to elucidate the factors underlying the spread of prostate cancer, particularly to the skeleton.It has been suggested that the bone marrow microenvironment is conducive to the growth of prostate cancer cells, which nonselectively enter the bone marrow from the circulation (Galasko, 1981;Jacobs, 1983;Paget, 1989;Body, 1992). However, the strikingly consistent pattern of prostate metastasis within the red marrow suggests that this process may in fact be regulated (Fidler et al, 1978). The mechanism of metastasis is a complex multi-step process that is not fully understood. One critical step in this mechanism may be the attachment to and extravasation through endothelial barriers by malignant cells possibly leading to selective metastatic sites. Tumour cell binding to endothelium involves two distinct steps, an initial docking step mediated via lectin-carbohydrate interactions followed by an integrin-mediated locking step (Honn and Tang, 1992). Several endothelial and tumour adhesion molecules have been associated with metastasis. In particular the integrins β1, α2 and α5 have been shown to be expressed by prostate epithelial cells and bone marrow cells (Soligo et al, 1990;Nagle et al, 1994;Rokhlin and Cohen, 1995). The carbohydrate sialyl Lewis X has also been associated with breast and lung cancer metastasis and its ligand P selectin is found on endothelial cells (Soligo et al, 1990). Some lung, brain, liver and ovary metastatic tumour cells have been demonstrated to bind selectively to endothelial cells isolated from lung, brain, liver and ovary respectively (Nicolson and Winkelhake, 1975;Auerbach et al, 1987). These studies suggest an active regulatory role for the endothelium in metastasis (Zetter, 1990).We have shown previously that primary prostatic epithelia from both benign and malignant tissue show an accelerated growth rate within bone marrow stroma compared to control stroma (Lang et al, 1998) and also that integrin α2β1 is a major contributor to the binding of primary prostatic epithelial cells to bone marrow stroma (Lang et al, 1997). This pattern of primary prostatic epithelial cell adhesion (α2β1) is mimicked by the prostate cell line, PC3 (Kostenuik et al, 1996) and our experiments were therefore conducted with this cell line. These studies have now been extended to develop a model to investigate the interactions of prostatic epithelial cells (primary and cell lines) with the bone marrow endothelium.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
MaterialsGeneral chemicals were purchased from Sigma (Poole, UK). Tissue culture media and supplements were obtained from Gibco Summary Prostate cancer shows a propensity to form secondary tumours within the bone marrow. Such ...