Alteration of the extracellular matrix of cultured human keratinocytes by transformation and during differentiation

Abstract

We have investigated the production of 3 extracellular matrix proteins (fibronectin, laminin and entactin) and glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) by keratinocytes derived from human squamous‐cell carcinomas (SCCs). All the SCC lines retained the ability to synthesize fibronectin, laminin and entactin, and to incorporate them into an extracellular matrix. In some of the SCC lines fibronectin production was higher than in normal keratinocytes, and in most lines laminin production was equal to or higher than that seen in normal keratinocyte strains. All the tumorigenic SCC lines produced less entactin than normal keratinocytes. Five out of 7 SCC lines showed a shift in GAG production compared with normal keratinocytes, so that in these lines heparan sulphate was the major GAG as opposed to hyaluronic acid in the normal keratinocytes. As these changes could have been a consequence of the reduced differentiation found in the SCC lines, we fractionated normal keratinocytes into 4 size classes corresponding to different stages of differentiation, using Percoll gradient centrifugation. It was found that the ability to produce these extracellular matrix glycoproteins and GAGs was lost as keratinocytes terminally differentiated. However, this did not explain the matrix changes seen in the SCC lines, since the undifferentiated normal keratinocytes produced a normal pattern of extracellular matrix components. Nonetheless, the loss of extracellular matrix production may well explain the reduction in substratum adhesiveness which occurs as keratinocytes terminally differentiate.