间充质干细胞对非小细胞肺癌细胞增殖和侵袭能力的初步探讨

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) are adult stem cells derived from mesoderm. Evidence has shown that MSC could migrate towards tumor tissue and differentiate into tumor associated fibroblast in tumor microenvironment, which influences tumor growth and metastasis. However, the reports of MSC in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are few and controversial. The aim of this study is to explore the chemotaxis of MSC towards NSCLC and to test the effects of MSC on the proliferation and invasion ability of NSCLC. METHODS: Transwell assay was used to test MSC and NSCLC migration and invasion, and Thymidine incorporation assay was adopted to measure NSCLC cells proliferation. The expression of interleukin-6 (IL-6), insulinlike growth factor (IGF-1), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and dickkopf-related protein 1 (DKK1) of MSCs were determined by real time PCR. A549 lung cancer xenograft animal tumor model was set up to evaluate the MSC effect in vivo. RESULTS: Lung cancer cells could attract MSC tropism. MSC conditioned medium favored lung cancer cell proliferation and lung cancer cells stimulated the expression of IL-6, IGF-1, VEGF and DKK1 on MSCs. In vivo animal study showed that the tumor with MSC injection grew much faster compared to control group. CONCLUSION: MSCs could migrate towards NSCLC cells and favor tumor growth. In turn, NSCLC cells could stimulate the overexpression of cytokines on MSCs which are essential for the tumor growth.