CD10-Equipped Melanoma Cells Acquire Highly Potent Tumorigenic Activity: A Plausible Explanation of Their Significance for a Poor Prognosis

PLoS One. 2016 Feb 16;11(2):e0149285. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0149285. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

CD10 has been widely used in cancer diagnosis. We previously demonstrated that its expression in melanoma increased with tumor progression and predicted poor patient survival. However, the mechanism by which CD10 promotes melanoma progression remains unclear. In order to elucidate the role of CD10 in melanoma, we established CD10-overexpressing A375 melanoma cells and performed DNA microarray and qRT-PCR analyses to identify changes in the gene expression profile. The microarray analysis revealed that up-regulated genes in CD10-A375 were mostly involved in cell proliferation, angiogenesis, and resistance to apoptosis; down-regulated genes mostly belonged to the categories associated with cell adhesion and migration. Accordingly, in functional experiments, CD10-A375 showed significantly greater cell proliferation in vitro and higher tumorigenicity in vivo; CD10 enzymatic inhibitors, thiorphan and phosphoramidon, significantly blocked the tumor growth of CD10-A375 in mice. In migration and invasion assays, CD10-A375 displayed lower migratory and invasive capacity than mock-A375. CD10 augmented melanoma cell resistance to apoptosis mediated by etoposide and gemcitabine. These findings indicate that CD10 may promote tumor progression by regulating the expression profiles of genes related to cell proliferation, angiogenesis, and resistance to apoptosis.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Antineoplastic Agents / pharmacology
  • Carcinogenesis / genetics
  • Carcinogenesis / pathology*
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Cell Movement
  • Cell Proliferation
  • Drug Resistance, Neoplasm / drug effects
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic
  • Humans
  • Melanoma / genetics
  • Melanoma / pathology*
  • Mice, Inbred BALB C
  • Neoplasm Invasiveness
  • Neprilysin / genetics
  • Neprilysin / metabolism*
  • Prognosis
  • Transfection

Substances

  • Antineoplastic Agents
  • Neprilysin

Grants and funding

This work was partly supported by grants from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, and the Government to the National Cancer Center (21S-7[6]), Japan. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.