CD437 Reduces Metastatic Potential of Melanoma Cells

Synthetic retinoid CD437, an agonist of the retinoic acid receptor γ (RARγ), demonstrates high potential for cancer treatment in xenograft models. The aim of this study is to investigate the melanoma cells’ metastatic potential alterations induced by CD437. 2D- and 3D-cell cultures, migration “into the wound,” invasion, colony forming assay, and flow cytofluorimetry are used in this study. Here we show that CD437 reduced the migration of Mel Z melanoma cells by 52 ± 2% compared to the positive control. The decrease in invasive activity of melanoma cells under the conditions of CD437 treatment did not exceed 40 ± 4%. CD437 also blocked the formation of capillary-like structures by melanoma cells on Matrigel. The efficiency of colony formation by Mel Z cells in the control was quite high. However, we did not observe any colonies after 7 days of cultivating melanoma cells with non-cytotoxic concentrations of CD437. Further, we show that the expression of MMP-9 in Mel Z cells is significantly lower than the expression of MMP-2. CD437 reduces the expression of MMP-2 by half, and MMP-9 by a factor of 35 compared to the control. We did not reveal the effect of CD437 on the CD44 expression by melanoma cells; there was a slight decrease in the CD24 expression (23 ± 2%). The data obtained suggest that CD437 reduces the metastatic potential of melanoma cells.