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Coexpression of the macrophage colony-stimulating factor (CSF-1) and its receptor (CSF-1R) in metastatic ovarian cancer specimens is a predictor of poor outcome in epithelial ovarian cancer. This suggests that an autocrine loop is produced by which ovarian tumors can secrete CSF-1 stimulating the CSF-1R resulting in a more aggressive phenotype. Our current work sought to validate this autocrine stimulation model using stable transfection of a 4-kb CSF-1 construct into otherwise nonvirulent Bix3 ovarian cancer cells. A representative clone, Bix3T8.2, produced a 72-fold increase in CSF-1 gene transcription rate (by nuclear run-off assays) and a 57-fold increase in secreted CSF-1 protein (by sandwich ELISA), compared to parent cells. Comparison of Bix3T8.2 invasion, adhesion, and motility in vitro and metastasis in vivo were made to parental and transfectant controls. Up to 12-fold higher invasiveness was seen with Bix3T8.2 and 2- and 6-fold higher adhesion and motility, respectively, over controls in vitro. In nude mice, i.p. injection of Bix3T8.2 produced a wide array of visceral, nodal, and distant metastasis with a degree of enhanced tumor burden not seen in any of the 10 mice inoculated with transfectant control cells. Complete absence of tumor take distinguished 40% of mice implanted with transfectant control cells. Disruption of this autocrine loop using antisense oligomer therapy against CSF-1R and 3' untranslated region knockdown of CSF-1 protein resulted in reversal of in vitro and in vivo tumor phenotypes. This CSF-1 feedback loop offers a model by which novel biologic therapies can potentially target multiple levels of this pathway.

The overexpression of the colony-stimulating factor-1(CSF-1) by epithelial ovarian cancer cells enhances invasiveness and metastatic properties, contributing to the poor prognosis of the patients. It has been suggested that CSF-1 3' untranslated region containing AU-rich elements (ARE) could regulate CSF-1 posttranscriptional expression and be responsible for its aberrant abundance in such cancer cells. In this study, normal (NOSE.1) and malignant (Hey) ovarian epithelial cells were used to examine CSF-1 expression and regulation. CSF-1 overexpression in Hey cells was found to associate with increased invasiveness, motility, urokinase activity, and virulence of tumorigenicity, compared with NOSE.1 cells, which expressed little CSF-1. CSF-1 ARE was further found to serve as an mRNA decay element that correlates with down-regulation of protein translation. Moreover, such down-regulation was found more prominent in NOSE.1 than in Hey cells, suggesting differences in posttranscriptional regulation. As a variety of trans-acting factors [AU-binding protein (AUBP)] are known to modulate messenger stability through binding to such elements, we examined the protein content of both cell lines for their ability to bind the CSF-1 ARE. Our results strongly suggested the abundance of such AUBP activity in Hey cells. We isolated a 37-kDa AUBP, which was identified as glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH). To summarize, our study identified GAPDH as an AUBP abundant in Hey cells, where it binds to CSF-1 ARE that imparts mRNA decay. These data suggest that GAPDH binding to CSF-1 ARE sequence prevents CSF-1 mRNA decay and subsequent down-regulation of CSF-1 protein translation, leading to CSF-1 overexpression and increased metastatic properties seen in ovarian cancer.

We asked whether there are germ line immunoglobulin variable (V) segments that match sites of hypermutation in V regions encoding murine antibodies. Murine germ line DNA was probed with a panel of short deoxyoligonucleotides identical in sequence to segments of hypermutated V regions from hybridomas generated in the BALB/c response to the hapten 2-phenyloxazolone (Ox). Germ line sequences that match mutations in both heavy and kappa light chain V regions were identified, and clones of some of these germ line V segments were obtained. Comparison of these clones with hypermutated V regions revealed regions of identity ranging in size from 7 to over 50 nucleotides. In an effort to separate the effects of antigen selection from the mutagenic process, we also searched for matches to a panel of silent mutations in VH regions from germinal center B cells. Fourteen silent mutations occur among a collection of 36 hypermutated VH regions from two separate germinal centers of C57BL/6 mice stimulated with the hapten 4-hydroxy-3-nitrophenyl. Matches to nine of these silent mutations can be found among published sequences of C57BL/6 VH regions of the J558 family. Taken together, these data are consistent with the possibility that a template-dependent mutational process, like gene conversion, may contribute to somatic hypermutation.