Regular Article

British Journal of Cancer (1999) 81, 790–795. doi:10.1038/sj.bjc.6690765 www.bjcancer.com
Published online 15 October 1999

Suppression of the c-erbB-2 gene product decreases transformation abilities but not the proliferation and secretion of proteases of SK-OV-3 ovarian cancer cells

K Wiechen1, S Karaaslan1, A Turzynski1 and M Dietel1

1Institute of Pathology, Universitätsklinikum Charité, Medizinische Fakultät der Humboldt-Universität Berlin, Schumannstr. 20/21, 10117 Berlin, Germany

Received 18 January 1999; Revised 25 March 1999; Accepted 12 March 1999.

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Abstract

The overexpression of the c-erbB-2 oncogene product has been reported in approximately 20–30% of human ovarian cancers and has been correlated with a poor prognosis in ovarian cancer patients. To investigate the function of p185c-erbB-2 in human ovarian cancer cells, a c-erbB-2-specific single-chain antibody (scFv-5R) was expressed in the c-erbB-2-overexpressing SK-OV-3 cell line using a retroviral expression vector. Eight individual clones expressing the single-chain antibody were isolated. These clones have a prominent retention of the cell surface p185c-erbB-2. In this study we compared the proliferation rate, the anchorage-independent growth, the secretion of matrix metalloproteases and of the urokinase-type plasminogen activator. The clones expressing the c-erbB-2 single-chain antibody, the control cells harbouring the empty vector and the parental SK-OV-3 cells they all had similar proliferation rates in the presence of 10% serum and secreted similar amounts of matrix metalloproteases and of the urokinase-type plasminogen activator. However, the expression of the c-erbB-2 oncogene product offers a strong growth advantage under serum-reduced conditions with 1% serum. In contrast to the parental SK-OV-3 and empty vector control cells, the scFv-5R-expressing clones were not able to grow anchorage-independently. These findings suggest that c-erbB-2 enhances transformation abilities of SK-OV-3 ovarian cancer cells without affecting the secretion of proteases and the proliferation of SK-OV-3 ovarian cancer cells in the presence of high concentrations of serum.

Keywords:

c-erbB-2 oncogene, ovarian cancer, single-chain antibody, proteases, cell transformation

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