Increased adhesion response of anaplastic glioma cells to nerve growth factor and the presence of specific receptors.

A trypsin-degradable nerve growth factor (NGF) receptor associated with the phospholipid component of the surface membrane has been detected on F98 anaplastic glioma cells. NGF also bound to the nucleus of F98 cells. Bound NGF was not displaceable by insulin, cytochrome C, growth hormone, or bovine serum albumin. Specific binding of NGF occurred with a Kd of 8.79 X 10(-12) M as determined by Scatchard analysis with approximately 34,000 receptors per cell. Specific NGF binding was also evident to C6 rat glioma cells and IMR-32 human neuroblastoma cells, but not to 3T3 mouse fibroblasts. These observations coupled with previous findings suggest that the NGF receptor may be a marker found on cells of neural derivation. As little as 1 ng/ml NGF caused an increase in the adhesiveness of F98 cells to culture flasks. Increased adhesiveness could be observed in as little as 5 min and was apparent for at least 45 min. At 25 min in NGF-containing medium, 24 +/- 3% of the cells adhered to the flasks compared to 13 +/- 1% of control cells. The NGF-induced increase in adhesiveness was not duplicated by epidermal growth factor, insulin, cytochrome c, bovine serum albumin, dibutyryl cyclic AMP, or sodium butyrate. Oxidized NGF blocked the effect of native NGF, but had little or no adhesion-promoting activity itself. Pretreatment of the cells with NGF was also effective in promoting adhesion, even though nerve growth factor was not added to the binding medium. The effect of this pretreatment was reversible; when NGF-pretreated cells were grown in medium without supplemental NGF, the adhesiveness of the cells returned to control levels or lower.