Surface antigen expression and complement susceptibility of differentiated neuroblastoma clones. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • Human neuroblastoma cell lines typically consist of heterogenous subpopulations of cells that are morphologically and biochemically distinct. The cell types are characterized as neuroblastic (N-type), substrate-adherent Schwann-like (S-type), or intermediate (I). These cell types can undergo spontaneous or induced transdifferentiation in vitro. We investigated the complement sensitivity of different neuroblastoma cell lines and of matched sets of cloned N- and S-type neuroblastoma cell lines. Human neuroblastoma cell lines that consisted predominantly of a neuroblastic phenotype were shown to be significantly more susceptible to human complement-mediated lysis than cell lines of other cancer types. Complement sensitivity of neuroblastoma cell lines was correlated with low levels of CD59, decay-accelerating factor, and membrane cofactor protein expression. We found that cloned S-type neuroblastoma cells were much more resistant to complement-mediated lysis than cloned N-type cells. The increased complement resistance of S-type cells was shown to be due to increased expression of membrane-bound complement inhibitors. CD59 was the single most important protein in providing S-type cells with protection from complement lysis. S-type cells were also found to express lower levels of GD2, a target antigen for a complement activating monoclonal antibody currently in clinical trials for neuroblastoma immunotherapy. The ability of S-type cells to evade complement, and the ability of S-type cells to differentiate into the more tumorigenic N-type cells, may represent a mechanism of tumor survival and regrowth, a phenomenon often observed with this cancer.

publication date

  • March 1, 2000

Research

keywords

  • CD59 Antigens
  • Complement Inactivator Proteins
  • Complement System Proteins
  • Cytotoxicity, Immunologic
  • Neuroblastoma

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC1876851

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 0033888697

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1016/S0002-9440(10)64976-0

PubMed ID

  • 10702424

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 156

issue

  • 3