This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Jin, H. Articles by Fan, D. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Jin, H. Articles by Fan, D.

---

Angiogenesis, Metastasis, and the Cellular Microenvironment

p75 Neurotrophin Receptor Inhibits Invasion and Metastasis of Gastric Cancer

¹ State Key Laboratory of Cancer Biology and Institute of Digestive Diseases, Xijing Hospital, the Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, P.R. China and ² Department of Gastroenterology, Bethune International Peace Hospital, Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, P.R. China

Requests for reprints: Daiming Fan, State Key Laboratory of Cancer Biology and Institute of Digestive Diseases, Xijing Hospital, the Fourth Military Medical University, 17 Changle Western Road, Xi'an 710032, Shaanxi Province, P.R. China. Phone: 86-29-8477-3974; Fax: 86-29-8253-9041. E-mail: fandaim{at}fmmu.edu.cn

The p75 neurotrophin receptor (p75NTR) is a focus for study at present. However, its function in gastric cancer was not elucidated. Here, we investigated its relation with metastasis of gastric cancer. By immunohistochemistry, we found that the positive rate of p75NTR expression in metastatic gastric cancer was 15.09% (16 of 106), which was lower compared with nonmetastatic gastric cancer (64.15%; 68 of 106). The average staining score in nonmetastatic gastric cancer was significantly higher than in metastatic gastric cancer (1.21 ± 0.35 versus 0.23 ± 0.18; P < 0.01). p75NTR protein level was also lowly expressed in the highly liver-metastatic gastric cancer cell line XGC9811-L compared with other gastric cancer cell lines by Western blotting. It could also significantly inhibit the in vitro adhesive, invasive, and migratory and in vivo metastatic abilities of gastric cancer cell lines SGC7901 and MKN45 by reducing urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA) and matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-9 proteins and by increasing tissue inhibitor of matrix metalloproteinase (TIMP)-1 protein. Further studies showed that p75NTR could suppress the nuclear factor-B (NF-B) signal. SN50, a specific inhibitor of NF-B, which could inhibit in vitro invasive and migratory abilities of gastric cancer cells, reduced expression of uPA and MMP9 proteins and increased expression of TIMP1 protein. Taken together, p75NTR had the function of inhibiting the invasive and metastatic abilities of gastric cancer cells, which was mediated, at least partially, by down-regulation of uPA and MMP9 proteins and up-regulation of TIMP1 protein via the NF-B signal transduction pathway. Our studies suggested that p75NTR may be used as a new potential therapeutic target in metastatic gastric cancer. (Mol Cancer Res 2007;5(5):423–30)