Abstract
The stroma of colorectal adenocarcinoma contains both abundant extracellular matrix (ECM) and an inflammatory cell infiltrate. The latter is the source of various cytokines, present in different concentrations in the tumor cell microenvironment. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether cytokines act as motility factors for HRT-18 rectal carcinoma cells and if this effect depends on the ECM. The main result of our study is that cytokines affect tumor cell motility in a matrix-dependent manner, and that stimulatory and inhibitory effects may depend on the composition of the ECM. Hepatocyte growth factor/scatter factor was the strongest migration factor for HRT-18 cells independent of the ECM. On the other hand, IL-6 was a strong migration stimulator for cells on Tenascin-C but was inhibitory on collagen type V. Therefore, different degrees of invasiveness at the tumor-host interface are not necessarily related to specific genetic alterations but might be related to different environmental conditions as well.
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