The effect of endothelial progenitor cells on the migration ability of different cell lines of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract

EPCs can induce, in adult life, the formation of new blood vessels through a de novo production of endothelial cells. This process can occur in physiological and pathological states, and it is usually triggered by ischemia. EPC-induced vasculogenesis is essential for tumor growth and metastasis; hence, it is a valuable therapeutic target. However, due to the development of resistance, the effect of current anti-angiogenic medications tends to be transitory. In order to create new treatments that more effectively target EPCs, it is imperative to better understand the mechanisms involved in tumor vessel formation, and how EPCs contribute to tumor progression and metastasis. With this in mind, we aimed to investigate the effect of different concentrations of EPCs or their supernatant on the migration ability of four different HNSCC cell lines: PCI-1, PCI-13, SCC-4 and SCC-68. We found that, at low concentrations (0,01% and 0,01%), the higher the supernatant’s concentration, the greater the influence on SCC-68 cells mobility. However, when analyzing our results, it must be taken into consideration the difficulty to identify and characterize EPCs, which can lead to an overestimation of their numbers and effect. Moreover, our study is limited by its small sample size. Therefore, further studies with larger sample sizes are needed to confirm our findings.