Adherens junctions of the endothelium play a key role in the maintenance of endothelial permeability and are composed of the vascular endothelial (VE)-cadherin/catenin adhesion complex. We report that following tumour cell (MDA MB231 cells) adherence to the HUVECs, there was a rapid (within 5 min) redistribution of VE-cadherin, resulting in its transient loss from regions of endothelial cell-cell contact. The molecule gradually reorganised within the endothelial cell contacts after this time. It was further shown that the overall expression of VE-cadherin did not change, however, the amount of alpha- and beta-catenins coprecipitated with VE-cadherin markedly decreased after 5 min of tumour cell adhesion to the HUVECs. Immunoprobing of these samples with anti-phosphotyrosine antibodies demonstrated that the tyrosine phosphorylation of VE-cadherin was significantly increased following 5 min of tumour cell adhesion. Together, these results suggest that the adhesion of tumour cells to HUVEC promotes the redistribution of VE-cadherin from interendothelial adherens junctions, an effect that may be attributed to the increase in tyrosine phosphorylation of members of the VE-cadherin/catenin adhesion complex. This, in turn, may increase vascular endothelial permeability and facilitate the transendothelial migration of tumour cells during extravasation.

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