Overlapping gene expression profiles of cell migration and tumor invasion in human bladder cancer identify metallothionein E1 and nicotinamide N-methyltransferase as novel regulators of cell migration

Cell migration is essential to cancer invasion and metastasis and is spatially and temporally integrated through transcriptionally dependent and independent mechanisms. Since cell migration is studied in vitro, it is important to identify genes that both drive cell migration and are biologically relevant in promoting invasion and metastasis in patients with cancer. Here, gene expression profiling and a high throughput cell migration system answers this question in human bladder cancer. In vitro migration rates of 40 microarray profiled human bladder cancer cell lines were measured by radial migration assay (RMA). Genes whose expression was either directly or inversely associated with cell migration rate were identified and subsequently evaluated for their association with cancer stage in 61 patients. This analysis identified genes known to be associated with cell invasion such as versican, and novel ones, including metallothionein E1 (MTE1) and nicotinamide N-methyltransferase (NNMT), whose expression correlated positively with cancer cell migration and tumor stage. Using loss of function analysis, we show that MTE1 and NNMT are necessary for cancer cell migration. These studies provide a general approach to identify the clinically relevant genes in cancer cell migration and mechanistically implicate two novel genes in this process in human bladder cancer.