Search

The activities of glycogen synthase and phosphorylase were measured and compared to the growth-related variations of glycogen accumulation in three cultured human tumor cell lines: HT-29 (colon carcinoma); MeWo (malignant melanoma); and RT-4 (carcinoma of the urinary bladder). A similar pattern of variations in the enzyme activities was found in the three cell lines. The activities of the a + b forms of glycogen phosphorylase increased throughout the culture period. Maximal activity of phosphorylase a coincided with low intracellular concentrations of glycogen during the period of exponential growth. When the rate of cell division decreased, phosphorylase a activity also decreased while the glycogen levels increased. Glycogen synthase was almost entirely in b form during the entire culture period, i.e., in both the exponential and the stationary phases. In vitro incubation of the cellular extracts without NaF showed, however, that the enzyme could be partially converted to the a form by the endogenous phosphatases. The A0.5 values of the enzyme for glucose-6-phosphate (Glc-6-P) were of the same order of magnitude as the intracellular Glc-6-P concentrations which ranged from 2.2 to 5.4 mM (almost 10 times those reported in normal cells). Similar Glc-6-P values were obtained by two different extraction methods controlled by the intracellular ATP and ADP concentrations. The Km values for uridine-5'-diphosphoglucose were always 2 to 3 times lower than the intracellular uridine-5'-diphosphoglucose concentrations. These results suggest that: (a) in these tumor cells, glycogen is essentially synthesized by glycogen synthase b via an allosteric activation by intracellular Glc-6-P; (b) there is no obvious growth-related control of glycogen synthase activity; and (c) the activity of glycogen phosphorylase seems to be growth dependent with maximal phosphorylase a activities associated with the period of high division rate.

The presence and kinetics of intracellular glycogen levels were studied, in relationship to cell growth, in asynchronous and in synchronized cultures of four human colorectal adenocarcinoma cell lines (HT-29, HRT-18, SW-480, and Caco-2). The results show that a specific pattern of glycogen accumulation occurs during the process of cell growth of the studied cell lines. The kinetics of glycogen accumulation in asynchronous cultures were similar from one cell line to another and were characterized by a low amount in the exponential phase of growth, followed by a 3- to 4-fold increase in the stationary phase. The quantities found in either phase were specific for each cell line. The maximum values found in Caco-2, HRT-18, HT-29, and SW-480 cells were, respectively, 258.5 +/- 6.9 (S.D.), 88.9 +/- 2.6, 87.5 +/- 3, and 17.5 +/- 1.8 microgram of glycogen per mg of proteins. The kinetics of glycogen accumulation during the cell cycle was also studied in synchronized cultures of HT-29 and HRT-18 cell lines. Both cell lines exhibited a common pattern of low glycogen quantities during S, G2, and M followed by an increase beginning with G1 and peaking (2.5 to 3 times the initial values) in the middle of this phase. This was followed by a symmetrical decrease in the second half of G1.

This study was undertaken to assess the role of vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) in the control of cyclic adenosine 3':5'-monophosphate production in colonic tumor cells. Seven human colorectal adenocarcinoma cell lines in culture were investigated (HT-29, HRT-18, SW-480, Caco-2, CO-115, CO-125, and HCT-8R). These cell-lines had a cyclic adenosine 3':5'-monophosphate production system which was very sensitive to VIP but less so to prostaglandin E1 and/or isoproterenol. Nonintestinal human malignant epithelial cells, such as HeLa (cervix) and Caki-1 and Caki-2 (kidney), by contrast, did not respond to VIP. The dose-response relationships of malignant colorectal cells were compared to those obtained with epithelial cells of normal human colon and showed that: (a) maximal responses were observed with 0.1 micro M VIP in both malignant and normal cells; (b) half-maximal responses were elicited by VIP concentrations in the 0.3 to 2 nM range in malignant cells (1.2 nM in normal cells), thus indicating the high apparent affinity of the cells to VIP; and (c) the magnitudes of the responses (stimulated:basal ratios) were highly variable in malignant cells, ranging from 225 in HT-29 cells to 3.5 in Caco-2 cells, but were more constant, in the order of 25, in normal cells. Secretin, a VIP agonist in intestinal tissue, stimulated cyclic adenosine 3':5'-monophosphate accumulation in all colorectal cells, but with a 1000- to 5000-fold lower potency than did VIP. These results show that the VIP-sensitive adenylate cyclase system operates in malignant as well as in normal colon epithelial cells.