Synthesis and secretion of plasminogen activators and collagenases in human cells transformed by Kirsten murine sarcoma virus and N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine.

The secretion of elevated levels of proteinases is considered to be a distinct property of most transformed cells. The cellular and secreted levels of plasminogen activators and collagenases have been examined in the nonmalignant human osteosarcoma (HOS), the malignant Kirsten murine sarcoma virus transformed (KHOS/NP), the temperature sensitive revertant of virus transformed HOS (KHOS-240S) and N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine transformed HOS (MNNG/HOS) clones. Virus and MNNG transformed clones exhibit 100- and 7-fold higher cellular and and 270- and 30-fold higher extracellular plasminogen activator (PA) activity as compared with untransformed HOS controls. The cellular PA activity of the revertant clone is similar to but the secreted level is slightly higher than the HOS controls. SDS-PAGE in the presence of casein and plasminogen is consistent with the major PA species of urinary type (u-PA) and with the absence of PA inhibitor in the parent and revertant clones. The cellular levels of active collagenase are low in all the clones. However, on activation by trypsin, the two active collagenase bands of similar intensity are observed for all the lines in SDS-PAGE in the presence of gelatin. While there appears to be some elevation of secreted collagenase prior to trypsin activation, the activated collagenases appear to have the same size and activity in all of the clones.