Metastatic Potential of Murine B16 Melanoma Correlates with Reduced Surface Heparan Sulfate Glycosaminoglycan

Abstract

We studied the relationship between the metastatic potential of murine B16 melanoma cells and their surface expression of heparan sulfate glycosaminoglycan (HS-GAG) by using HepSS-1, a monoclonal antibody specific to HS-GAG. Firstly, among five B16 sublines, those capable of developing lung colonies with high efficiencies, such as B16-F10, had relatively low levels of surface HS-GAG. Secondly, a subline freshly prepared from metastatic lung colonies (F1) displayed a level of surface HS-GAG lower than that of injected B16 cells. Thirdly, in vitro selection of B16 cells with low surface HS-GAG by repeated HepSS-1 staining and cell-sorting resulted in cells with a higher metastatic efficiency than that of the original B16 cells. Collectively, B16 melanoma cells with high metastatic activities seem to have low surface HS-GAG. We also found that there was a positive correlation between the surface level of HS-GAG and the susceptibility to natural killer cells in eight B16 sublines.