Autotaxin Expression in Non-small-cell Lung Cancer

Autotaxin (ATX) is one of the newly discovered autocrine motility-stimulating factors with peptide sequences identical to those of the brain-type phosphodiesterase I (PD-Ialpha). Although ATX/PD-Ialpha is believed to play a role in tumor progression, its expression in various human cancers has not been extensively studied. We have studied the expression of ATX messenger RNA (mRNA) in normal human bronchial epithelial cell (HBEC) and non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines, and in primary NSCLC with their corresponding normal lung tissues, using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction, Northern blot analysis, and in situ hybridization. ATX mRNA was commonly expressed in these cell lines and tissues. The predominantly expressed mRNA species corresponded to the ATX complementary DNA isolated from a human teratocarcinoma cell line. Overexpression of ATX mRNA was detected in seven of 12 (58%) tumor cell lines; however, there was no correlation between the levels of expression of ATX mRNA and the spontaneous motility of these cells. In situ hybridization localized ATX mRNA expression to the basal cells of normal bronchial epithelium, stromal B lymphocytes, and tumor cells. An overexpression of ATX mRNA as compared with its expression in normal bronchial epithelium was mainly found in poorly differentiated carcinomas. Our findings suggest that ATX may have roles additional to its motility-stimulating function in undifferentiated NSCLC.