Partial characterization of a glucocorticoid suppressible mitogenic activity secreted from a rat hepatoma cell line hypersensitive to the antiproliferative effects of glucocorticoids.

We have previously shown that glucocorticoids suppress the proliferation of Fu5 hepatoma cells and have selected subclones which are either hypersensitive (BDS1) or resistant (EDR3) to the antiproliferative effects of dexamethasone, a synthetic glucocorticoid. BDS1 cells externalize a glucocorticoid suppressible mitogenic activity (denoted GSM) which stimulated [3H]thymidine incorporation in quiescent, serum-starved Balb/c 3T3 cells. Glucocorticoid treatment of BDS1 cells reduced the secreted levels of GSM activity by approximately 20-fold in comparison to untreated cells. The GSM activity was constitutively secreted from a glucocorticoid receptor minus variant (EDR3) demonstrating that the suppression of this mitogenic activity is a new glucocorticoid hormone response which required a functional receptor. GSM activity was sensitive to sulfhydryl reducing agents or trypsin, stable to heat and acid treatments and fractionated in gel filtration columns with a native molecular weight of approximately Mr 30,000. The persistence of this size for mitogenic activity after electrophoretic fractionation in nonreducing sodium dodecyl sulfate-poly-acrylamide gels suggested that the GSM activity is comprised of a single protein. Total secreted protein isolated from untreated BDS1, but not dexamethasone-treated BDS1, stimulated 3T3 cells to grow in transformed-appearing large colonies in soft agar and to display multiple layering and elongated spindle-like morphology on solid substratum. The addition of both insulin and EGF to conditioned medium protein isolated from glucocorticoid-treated BDS1 cells restored full induction of 3T3 cell anchorage-independent growth while insulin restored full and EGF partial mitogenic stimulation of these fibroblasts. These results suggest that the GSM activity acts in a pathway common to that of insulin or EGF in fibroblasts.