Morphological and metastatic murine melanoma variants: motility, adhesiveness, cell surface and in vivo properties.

The behaviour in vivo of tight and loose variants of murine melanoma cells is further characterized. In vitro clonal morphology is reproduced on a variety of substrates. Results suggest that repeated selection of loose cells can co-select for cells with high metastatic and colonization potentials. Measurement of cell motility shows that 1G3 (loose) cells are more motile than 1G8 (tight) which are restricted to movements within clonal boundaries. Studies of adhesive properties show that loose cells are more easily detached from the substrate with trypsin or EDTA and that both cell lines attach more quickly to monolayers of loose cells than to tight ones. No gross differences are found either in attachment rates to plastic and ECM or in aggregation and disaggregation rates. Analysis of the cell surface has not revealed any differences between 1G8 and 1G3 in the sialylation of terminal galactose and N-acetylgalactosamine residues or in neuraminidase releasable sialic acid. The binding patterns of iodinated lectins to SDS-PAGE separated proteins are similar for both lines except for one 85/90 KD protein which is more abundant in 1G3 than 1G8 cells after neuraminidase treatment. The results show enhanced differences in metastatic potential of tight and loose clones after selective cloning and that there may be important differences in motility and cell-substrate interactions.