Human mammary carcinoma cells. The enzyme pacemaker profibrinolysin

When cultured in-vitro, originating from different breast cancer patients, tumor cells, identified histologically as carcinoma cells, varied in their proliferation patterns and cell morphology. If exposed for brief periods to vibrio cholera neuraminidaes (VCN), the amount of sialic acid released from the cells varied from one culture to another and increased with higher enzyme concentrations. If exposed to trypsin, the amount of released proteins varied also from one culture to another. Significant difference was observed between the effect of VCN or collagenase on normal and neoplastic cell cultures. Whether human or murine cell cultures, the cell-free media harvested from cultures of neoplastic cells containing high concentrations of collagenolytic-caseinolytic-fibrinolytic and esterolytic activities. Two effects of concanavalin A (Con A) have been distinguished on thymidine incorporation, the first is a decrease in the maximal thymidine uptake, whereas the second is a shift to the maximum thymidine uptake to higher Con A concentrations. At low concentrations, alpha-1-antitrypsin (AAT) had no effect, but at high concentrations it inhibited 3H-thymidine uptake. At low concentrations human profibrinolysin inhibited and at higher concentration sit enhanced uptake of the labeled precursor. Therefore, the collagen olytic caseinolytic-fibrinolytic enzyme is a pacemaker for proliferation of human mammary carcinoma cells.