Author Description

This dissertation, "Metastasis and Angiogenesis in Neuroblastoma: Involvement of Visinin Like Protein-1 and Dendritic Cell" by Yi, Xie,, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of thesis entitled Metastasis and Angiogenesis in Neuroblastoma: Involvement of Visinin Like Protein-1 and Dendritic Cell Submitted by Xie Yi () For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong in January 2007 In the present study, I have demonstrated that metastasis of neuroblastoma is linked intimately with the proliferative and invasive phenotypes of tumor cells. Using invasion trans-well assays, two sub-populations of cells representing highly invasive cells (HI cells) and low invasive cells (LI cells) were isolated from human neuroblastoma cell line SK-N-AS. Subsequently, it was shown that HI cells displayed higher metastatic property but lower proliferative rate than LI cells in culture and in nude mice. In addition, they displayed distinct sensitivities to chemotherapy drugs, and HI cells were more sensitive to Etoposide (VP-16) and Adriamycin than LI cells. Affymetrix microarray analysis and quantitative RT-PCR revealed elevated Visinin Like Protein-1 (VSNL-1) mRNA in HI cells as compared to LI cells. Over-expression of VSNL-1 in LI cells resulted in reduction of cell proliferation but enhanced invasion ability. Furthermore, modified LI cells over-expressing VSNL-1 produced frequent distant metastasis in nude mice as compared to the original un-modified LI cells. Upregulation of VSNL-1 potentiated the anoikis-resistant ability of neuroblastoma cell, concomitant with the upregula