Cytokine modulation of antigen expression in human melanoma cell lines derived from primary and metastatic tumour tissues.

The constitutive and cytokine-mediated expression of MHC class I and II antigens and intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) was evaluated on eight human melanoma cell lines derived from primary and metastatic malignancies from patients (WM human melanoma series) including three pairs of related cell lines derived from the same individual. The cytokines IL-1 beta, IL-4, IL-6, TNF alpha, TGF beta 2, IFN gamma and IFN alpha were assessed for their ability to modulate the expression of cell surface antigens. MHC class I and class II antigen expression was unregulated by IFN gamma, IFN alpha and/or TNF alpha in cell lines established from primary melanoma. In contrast the cell lines derived from metastatic deposits did not show an increase in expression of MHC antigens in response to these cytokines. Both primary and metastatic WM cell lines were shown to be resistant to spontaneous natural killer cell (NK) activity, but susceptible to effector lymphocytes mediating lymphotine activated killer (LAK) cytotoxicity as a result of activation by IL-2. Although the constitutive and cytokine-induced level of expression of ICAM-1 and MHC antigens varied between paired primary and metastatic cell lines, this did not correlate with susceptibility of the cell line target to NK or LAK cytotoxicity. Whereas the IFNs, TNF alpha, TGF beta 2 and IL-1 beta differentially modulated the expression of ICAM-1 and MHC class I, treatment with IFNs (but not IL-1 beta, TNF alpha or TGF beta 2) resulted in a significant reduction in the sensitivity of the melanoma cells to NK and LAK cytotoxicity. Constitutive ICAM-1 expression was positively correlated with the ability of WM cell lines to colonise the lungs of SCID mice upon i.v. injection. The acquisition of cytokine resistance and inability to demonstrate enhanced cell surface expression may represent an important feature associated with the development of the metastatic phenotype.