Retinoic acid modulates extracellular urokinase-type plasminogen activator activity in DU-145 human prostatic carcinoma cells.

Effects of all-trans retinoic acid (RA) on the net enzymatic activity of secreted, extracellular urokinase-type plasminogen activator (u-PA) in DU-145 human prostatic carcinoma cells were examined to assess the potential use of retinoids in human prostate cancer prevention and treatment. u-PA is associated with tumor progression involving invasion and metastasis. Based on a chromogenic substrate assay, results show that DU-145 cells secrete five times more u-PA than normal human prostatic epithelium. DU-145 cells were treated with 0.1 to 10 micrometer RA for 48 h. This short treatment of cells with RA did not inhibit growth. After a 48-h treatment of cultures with RA, serum-free conditioned medium was analyzed for u-PA activity by SDS-PAGE zymography. Two major bands of u-PA with Mr of approximately 54,000 (high molecular weight u-PA) and approximately 33,000 (low molecular weight u-PA) were detected. Plasminogen-dependent catalytic activity of these bands could be specifically inhibited with antibody to u-PA, confirming that these bands represent u-PA. A 48-h treatment with 1.0 micrometer RA reduced u-PA activity in conditioned medium to 51.6% of control. A 50% reduction in free u-PA antigen level, as compared to control, was further demonstrated at 1.0 micrometer RA by Western blot analysis and densitometry. These results show that RA can decrease the net extracellular urokinase activity produced by prostatic carcinoma cells. It is proposed that these effects of RA may have important implications not only in the chemoprevention of prostate cancer, by inhibition of promotion of prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia to invasive carcinoma, but also in tumor progression during invasion and metastasis, by decreasing extracellular matrix degradation, as shown in our accompanying article (M. M. Webber and A. Waghray, Clin. Cancer Res., 1: 755-761, 1995).