Faculty Bibliography

Ocular pigmentation in the mouse occurs primarily postnatally as a result of the melanization of neural crest-derived melanocytes. Using immunologic and biochemical techniques, we demonstrate that in normal mice the expression of tyrosinase and the related proteins TRP-1 and TRP-2, rises during the first week of life, remains elevated for a week, and then steadily declines to low levels by adulthood. Sucrose gradient density centrifugation demonstrates that tyrosinase, TRP-1 and TRP-2 are present in high molecular weight forms in the eyes of wild-type mice. The normal time course is disrupted in mice carrying the pink-eyed unstable (p(un)) mutation at the P-locus, a model for tyrosinase-positive albinism in man. Tyrosinase and TRP-2 are present at wild-type levels in the eyes of p(un)/p(un) mice at birth, but, rather than rising, their levels rapidly decline over the first week of life. TRP-1 is almost undetectable, even at birth. High molecular weight complexes could not be detected in eyes of p(un)/p(un) mice. Our results suggest that postnatal ocular melanogenesis in the mouse presents an attractive model for the study of the orderly expression and action of the proteins involved in eumelanin synthesis, and that the p(un) mutation disrupts this temporally controlled process

Midgestation fetal wound healing is characterized by healing without fibrosis or scar formation. The mechanisms that underlie this remarkable process are mediated in part through a fetal wound extracellular matrix rich in hyaluronic acid. In this study a newly developed assay was used to determine the hyaluronic acid levels in fetal and adult wound fluid. Adult wound fluid had a rapid increase in hyaluronic acid, which peaked at 3 days and decreased to 0 by 7 days. In contrast levels of hyaluronic acid in fetal wound fluid increased rapidly and remained significantly elevated for 3 weeks. This prolonged presence of hyaluronic acid in the matrix of fetal wounds creates a 'permissive' wound environment that promotes fetal fibroblast movement and proliferation and inhibits cytodifferentiation. Such a matrix environment promotes healing by regeneration rather than by scarring. This observation has therapeutic implications. The prolonged application of hyaluronic acid or hyaluronate protein complexes to wounds in children or adults may modulate healing in a manner that makes the wounds more fetal-like.

Cardiac myxoma is the most common primary tumor of the heart. This tumor has a gelatinous stroma that is thought to be composed of glycosaminoglycans, the classical acid mucopolysaccharide ground substance. We examined both biochemically and histologically the hyaluronic acid in a case of cardiac myxoma using a newly developed hyaluronic acid-binding protein probe. We observed that hyaluronic acid was localized in the amorphous stroma and occurred at levels 30 times that found in normal atrial septum.

Recent clinical and experimental evidence suggests that the fetus responds to injury in a fashion fundamentally different from that of the adult. Our initial experience with human open fetal surgery reinforces experimental observations that the fetal wounds heal without the scarring, inflammation, and contraction that often accompany adult wounds. In this study we examine fetal wound fluid in an attempt to elucidate the control mechanisms that endow the fetus with unique healing properties. The extracellular matrix of fetal wounds is rich in hyaluronic acid, a glycosaminoglycan found in high concentrations whenever there is tissue proliferation, regeneration, and repair. We establish that wound fluid from the fetus contains high levels of hyaluronic acid-stimulating activity that may underlie the elevated deposition of hyaluronic acid in the fetal wound matrix. In contrast there was no hyaluronic acid-stimulating activity present in adult wound fluid. Hyaluronic acid, in turn, fosters an extracellular environment permissive for cell motility and proliferation that may account for the unique properties observed in fetal wound healing.

The sine qua non of malignancy is the ability of tumor cells to migrate and invade surrounding tissue. There are many substances that have been described that enhance cell motility and hyaluronic acid is prominent among these. Hyaluronic acid is a high molecular weight alternating disaccharide polymer found in abundance in extracellular matrices whenever rapid cell proliferation or tissue regeneration and repair occur. It creates a permissive environment for cell motility during embryogenesis, and high levels of hyaluronic acid also correlate with increased tumor cell invasion and aggressiveness. Little is known about the regulation of hyaluronic acid production, either in normal tissue or in malignancy. In this study, we characterize a hyaluronic acid-stimulating activity in fetal calf serum and describe a similar activity in the sera of breast cancer patients. The stimulating activity was measured by placing aliquots of test substance on fibrosarcoma cells. These indicator cells, which synthesize copious quantities of hyaluronic acid, respond to stimulation in a time- and dose-dependent fashion. The fetal calf serum hyaluronic acid-stimulating activity is maximum early in gestation and then falls rapidly to essentially no activity at term. This activity was partially purified from 120-day fetal calf serum by concanavalin A-Sepharose affinity and ion exchange chromatography and is accounted for by a glycoprotein with a molecular weight of 150,000 on gel filtration under native conditions. The sera of breast cancer patients with measurable burden of disease also contained hyaluronic acid-stimulating activity, which was not present in normal serum donors or in breast cancer patients without evidence of disease. The production of this stimulating activity may contribute to the development of the malignant phenotype by inducing hyaluronic acid-rich microenvironments that are permissive to tumor cell invasion and metastases.