Mechanistic Studies of Laminin in the Tumor Cell Behavior and Vasculogenic Mimicry Formation
Vasculogenic mimicry(VM)refers the process by which tumor cells form new microcircula-tion patterns in the absence of endothelial cells.Clinically,VM is associated with an aggressive pheno-type and poorer patient survival.Many previous studies have focused on angiogenic factors.Recently,more and more studies have found that the extracellular matrix around tumor cells plays a significant role during tumorigensis.Extracellular matrix proteins may render tumor cells to form vasculogenic mimicry.In this study,we investigated the role of laminin(LN)matrix in tumor progression and VM formation in melanoma and osteosarcoma.Compared with the control group,the adhesion,proliferation,migration,stemness expression and VM formation ability of cancer cells were significantly enhanced under high con-centrations of LN substrate culture.Immunofluorescence staining and real-time quantitative PCR were used to analyze the internal molecular mechanism.The results showed that compared with the control group,the laminin matrix significantly promoted the expression of CD133 in tumor cells,and the mRNA expression of E-cadherin is down-regulated(P<0.05),while the mRNA expression of Integrin,N-cad-herin,Vimentin,Snail and Twist is up-regulated(P<0.05).These results indicate that laminin promotes the adhesion,proliferation,migration and VM formation of tumor cells,and reveals the potential mecha-nism of VM formation,providing a new idea for the VM diagnosis and treatment.