A Local Paracrine and Endocrine Network Involving TGFβ, Cox-2, ROS, and Estrogen Receptor β Influences Reactive Stromal Cell Regulation of Prostate Cancer Cell Motility

The tumor microenvironment plays a critical role in supporting cancer cells particularly as they disengage from limitations on their growth and motility imposed by surrounding nonreactive stromal cells. We show here that stromal-derived androgenic precursors are metabolized by DU145 human prostate cancer (PCa) cells to generate ligands for estrogen receptor-β, which act to limit their motility through transcriptional regulation of E-cadherin. Although primary human PCa-associated fibroblasts and the human WPMY-1-reactive prostate stromal cell line maintain this inherent estrogen receptor (ER)β-dependent motility inhibitor activity, they are subverted by TGF-β1 pro-oxidant signals derived from cocultured DU145 PCa cells. Specifically, stromal-produced H2O2, which requires Cox-2, acts as a second paracrine factor to inhibit ERβ activity in adjacent DU145 cells. Chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis reveals that ERβ recruitment to the E-cadherin promoter is inhibited when H2O2 is present. Both neutralization of H2O2 with catalase and prevention of its production by silencing Cox-2 expression in stromal cells restore the motility-suppression activity of stromal-derived ERβ ligand precursors. These data suggest that reactive stromal cells may still have a capacity to limit cancer cell motility through a local endocrine network but must be protected from pro-oxidant signals triggered by cancer cell-derived TGF-β1 to exhibit this cancer-suppressive function.