Stimulation of pancreas and gastric carcinoma cell growth by interleukin 3 and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor.

Hematopoietic growth factors have recently been well characterized by complementary DNA cloning. For human epidermal growth factor, granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor recombinant proteins have been expressed in Escherichia coli. To reduce the toxic side effects of chemotherapy on the bone marrow, recombinant human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor and recombinant human interleukin 3 were applied to patients suffering of gastrointestinal cancers. To determine the influence of recombinant human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor and recombinant human interleukin 3 on human pancreas and gastric cancer cell cells in vitro, a sensitive microculture test system was established that allows precise quantification of proliferation. A more than twofold enhancement of proliferation was observed by interleukin 3 and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor in two of two cell cultures derived from gastric carcinoma cells, while two of nine cultures from pancreas carcinoma cells have shown enhanced cell growth in the presence of recombinant human interleukin 3 or recombinant human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor. In comparison, recombinant human epidermal growth factor increased cell growth in two of two gastric and in five of nine pancreas carcinoma cultures. In general, 1-10 ng/mL of the growth factors yielded the highest growth rate, but even 1-pg amounts produced increased cell growth. Expression of messenger RNA for granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, interleukin 3, and the oncogene HER2/neu remained undetectable in all of the tested cell lines, while the various abundance of messenger RNA for the epidermal growth factor receptor was different in each cell line. The reported results imply that the hematopoietic growth factors interleukin 3 and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor influence cellular growth of pancreas and gastric carcinoma cells by a paracrine mechanism and may possess a more general regulatory function than originally anticipated.