Vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) and VIP receptors: Gene expression and growth modulation in medulloblastoma and other central primitive neuroectodermal tumors of childhood

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Abstract
Vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) is a neuromodulator and growth regulator in the developing nervous system. We analyzed 10 primitive neuroectodermal tumor (PNET) cell lines, 29 central PNET (cPNET) and 17 tumors of the Ewing's sarcoma/peripheral PNET family (ESFT) using reverse transcriptase‐polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) and Southern hybridization. Each of the 10 cell lines and 86.2% of cPNET expressed mRNA for VIP receptor 1 (VIPR1) compared to 52.9% of ESFT. VIPR2 was expressed in 75.8% of cPNET, in 28.6% of ESFT and in all 10 cell lines. cPNET demonstrated high‐affinity binding of 125I‐VIP on quantitative autoradiography and in competitive binding assays. VIP inhibited tumor cell proliferation in a dose‐dependent manner in 5 of 7 PNET cell lines. We conclude that VIPR1 and VIPR2 are highly expressed in cPNET and demonstrate that VIP is a growth modulator in these tumors. Int. J. Cancer 81:165–173, 1999.