Regulatory molecules in tumor metastasis

The most life-threatening aspects of cancer are invasion and metastasis. The phenomena of metastasis is a multistep process of host tumor interactions. In the present study, we wanted to identify regulatory molecules in tumor metastasis. Our comparative studies between highly metastatic B16F10 and low metastatic B16F1 tumor cells strongly indicate that the function of vitronectin integrin receptor (alphavbeta3) and collagenase enzyme activity (72 kDa) are two of the key factors that control the invasive and metastatic properties of B16 F10 melanoma cells. The decreased expression of nm23 gene product, TIMP-2, and E-cadherin and the increased expression of pp125FAK in highly metastatic B16F10 tumor cells indicate their potential role in metastatic cascade.