0000000000786306
AUTHOR
R. Thees
Elevated serum E-selectin in patients with liver metastases of colorectal cancer
E-selectin, an endothelial cell adhesion molecule, mediates the initial step of leucocyte adhesion to activated vascular endothelium. The soluble isoform of E-selectin promotes angiogenesis in rat cornea. In the present study, we investigated whether leucocyte adhesion and angiogenesis are also involved in tumour progression and metastasis of colorectal cancer. Therefore, we determined the level of circulating soluble E-selectin in serum samples of 38 patients with colorectal cancer; 20 patients with non-metastatic and 18 patients with metastatic disease. Median levels of soluble E-selectin were found to be significantly higher in metastatic tumour disease (88.7 ng/ml, range 25-203 ng/ml) t…
?(1,3)Fucosyltransferase expression in E-selectin-mediated binding of gastrointestinal tumor cells
E-selectin recognizes the oncofetal antigen sialyl-Lewis X, which is highly expressed in adenocarcinoma. Five α(1,3)fucosyltransferases (FT) have been cloned that confer cell-surface expression of sialyl-Lewis X on transfected cells. We show here that 12/18 gastrointestinal-tumor cell lines bind specifically to immobilized E-selectin and that in sialyl-Lewis-X-positive cells binding is inhibited with a monoclonal antibody against sialyl-Lewis X. Using RT-PCR, we determined the expression of the α(1,3)fucosyltransferases III, IV, V, VI and VII in gastrointestinal tumor cells. Transcripts of FT IV and FT VII are abundantly expressed in all tested cells. Therefore no single fucosyltransferase …