Selective stimulation of small cell lung cancer clonal growth by bombesin and gastrin-releasing peptide

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Human small cell lung cancers (SCLC) produce and secrete the regulatory peptide bombesin (BN) or its mammalian counterpart gastrin-releasing peptide (GRP). In addition, several SCLC tumor lines have been shown to express high affinity receptors for BN/GRP. On the basis of these findings, we investigated the effect of exogenously added BN and GRP on the soft agarose colony growth of a panel of human cell lines. In serum-free defined medium, colony formation of 9 of 10 SCLC cell lines was stimulated up to 150-fold by BN or GRP, with peak colony stimulation observed at 50 nM BN. In contrast, no stimulatory effect of BN was observed on nine non-SCLC cell lines. Although no stimulation of colony growth by BN was seen in serum-supplemented medium, addition of BN to the serum-free medium increased cloning efficiency to that achieved by serum in most of the SCLC cell lines. GRP 1-27, the active mammalian analogue of Bn, stimulated colony growth of SCLC cells similar to the manner of BN, while the physiologically inactive BN analogue, des-Leu (13)-Met (14)-BN, had no effect on colony growth. No correlation was observed in SCLC cell lines between the response of these cells to exogenous BN and the amount of cellular BN/GRP produced or the presence of BN receptors. These data suggest that BN/GRP may in some instances function as an autocrine growth factor for SCLC and indicate new ways for modulating SCLC growth in patients with this tumor.