Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:3.4.21.5 (thrombin)
 33,306 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Clinical, experimental and ultrastructural studies strongly suggest a role for platelets in metastatic dissemination. Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the potential contribution of blood platelets to the metastatic cascade. Experimentally, many tumour cells of either animal or human origin have the capacity to activate platelets, although the mechanisms by which malignant cells exert this effect is not yet fully understood. Possible mechanisms include: (1) generation of thrombin; (2) activation by ADP; (3) release of cathepsin B; (4) eicosanoid metabolism. A number of observations also indicated that tumour-cell-induced platelet aggregation required specific receptor sites. We have shown that platelet glycoprotein GPIb and the complex GPIIb/IIIa are necessary for tumour-cell-induced platelet aggregation. We and others reported the isolation of a microparticulate aggregating material from different types of tumour cell lines. This material has been identified as a sialolipoprotein complex which possesses tissue-factor-like activity. The role of sialic acid in the metastatic potential of cells is also believed to be important and may partly modulate their interactions with platelets. In vivo, rheological factors may also regulate the interactions of tumour cells with blood and vascular structures and an alternative approach to the evaluation of platelet-tumour-cell interaction under dynamic conditions has been the use of perfusion systems. Thus, we have established the crucial role of Ca2+ in supporting tumour-cell-platelet activation and subsequent thrombus formation. More recently we investigated the patterns of adhesion of a highly metastatic human adenocarcinoma of the lung to exposed extracellular matrix generated by human vascular endothelial cells in culture.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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PMID:The role of platelets in cancer metastasis. 213 51

We investigated the ability of human lung cancer cells of different histological subtypes to cause platelet aggregation. Tumor-cell-induced platelet aggregation (TCIPA) was studied in vitro in 13 human lung cancer cell lines [small-cell lung cancer (SCLC), squamous-cell lung cancer, large-cell lung cancer, adenocarcinoma and alveolar-cell lung cancer]. Three tumor cell lines failed to aggregate platelets in platelet-rich plasma, whereas platelet aggregation was induced by 12 cell lines when added to washed platelets and minimal amounts of platelet-poor plasma (0.5% v/v). The thrombin antagonist hirudin inhibited TCIPA in non-small-cell lung cancer cell lines (NSCLC). In SCLC, TCIPA was fully abolished only when the ADP scavenger apyrase was added to hirudin. Thus ADP and thrombin generation by these tumor cell lines are responsible for platelet aggregation. The ability to activate platelets independently of coagulation factors VII and X was demonstrated for 8 cell lines. Electron-microscopically, direct tumor-cell/platelet contact was found to be the initiating mechanism of TCIPA in SCLC, whereas tumor-cell/platelet contacts in NSCLC could only be observed at the peak of the aggregation curve. Lung cancer cells activate platelets in vitro by generation of thrombin and/or ADP.
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PMID:Studies on tumor-cell-induced platelet aggregation in human lung cancer cell lines. 895 71