Lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) is a pluripotent lipid mediator and acts via different G-protein-couple LPA receptors. LPA has significant effects on several cellular biological behaviours, such as cell migration, invasion, proliferation and differentiation, etc. Cell migration is essential for tumor progression, and vital for stem cell to repair injured tissues. Increasing evidences have demonstrated that LPA dramatically affects migration capacity of various cells, particularly cancer cells and stem cells. In this paper, we review the effect of LPA on migration of cancer cells and stem cells, and discuss the underlying mechanisms. A better understanding of this process will shed new light on tissue regeneration and the prevention of tumor progression.
In this study, we aimed to investigate the influences of conditioned medium from human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) on cancer stem cell phenotype of human hepatoma cells. HUVEC and human hepatoma cells (MHCC97H) were cultured, respectively, and then the MHCC97H cells were co-cultured with conditioned medium from HUVEC (EC-CM) with Transwell system. Anti-cancer drug sensitivity, colony-formation, migration/invasion ability, expression of cancer stem cell marker and sphere formation were performed to determine the cancer stem cell phenotype in MHCC97H cells. We found that MHCC97H cells co-cultured with EC-CM exhibited significantly higher colony-formation ability and lower sensitivity of anti-cancer drugs 5-FU and Cis. Transwell assay showed that treatment with EC-CM obviously increased migration and invasion of MHCC97H cells. Moreover, increased sphere forming capability and expression of CD133 in MHCC97H cells were observed after co-cultured with EC-CM. These results suggested that EC-CM could promote cancer stem cell phenotype of hepatoma cells.