Objective: To select the ovarian carcinoma cell lines with high frequent metastasis and study the association between nm23-H1 gene expression and metastasis of ovarian carcinoma. Methods: Each ovarian cancer cell line was transplanted subcutaneously into the flank of nude mice, and the metastatic behavior was evaluated by counting lung tumor foci at different time points. The metastatic tumors were cultured in vitro, then substrain was established and transplanted subcutaneously three times. The RNA level of nm23 in 8 human ovarian cancer cell lines were examined by northern-blot. Results: Of the 8 human ovarian cancer cell lines, 4 had high requent metastatic potentiality. The expression of nm23 RNA in human ovarian cancer cells was inversely related to metastatic behavior in the experimental animals (r=0.96, P=0.0001). Conclusion: The difference of the tendency of metastasis which was determined by genetic and molecular levels was significant among different type of cell lines and subtypes. The expression of nm23 mRNA in human ovarian carcinomas was correlated closely with the reduced metastatic behavior in experimental animals and may serve as a sensitive prognostic indicator for ovarian cancer.
