La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation

Kurt R Gehlsen

Erkki I Ruoslahti

Michael D Pierschbacher

Eva Engvall

A method of inhibiting the invasion of cells, particularly malignant cells through an extracellular membrane by contacting the membrane-cell interface with synthetic Arg-Gly-Asp-containing peptides. In one embodiment, the invention provides peptides containing the amino acid sequence Arg-Gly-Asp-Thr, more specifically Gly-Arg-Gly-Asp-Thr-Pro, which inhibits the attachment of cells to type I collagen in addition to fibronectin and vitronectin, and a method of inhibiting the attachment of cells to type I collagen. The invention further provides an assay for quantitating the invasive quality of cells by determining the amount of such peptides necessary to prevent the cells from penetrating an extracellular membrane, such as an amniotic membrane, in vitro.

Inhibition of cell migration with synthetic peptides

An adhesion receptor for laminin is provided. The receptor is isolated from cell or tissue extracts and fractionated on an affinity column composed of cell attachment-promoting fragments of laminin coupled to Sepharose.TM. in the presence of divalent cations. This receptor can be used to prepare specific antibodies for the analysis of the amount of laminin receptor expressed by cells and has other applications in cellular and tumor biology.

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San Diego, CA, United States of America

Kurt R Gehlsen