Homogeneously Staining Regions and Double Minute Chromosomes, Prevalent Cytogenetic Abnormalities of Human Neuroblastoma Cells

Abstract

This chapter focuses on in vitro cultivation of human neuroblastoma cells and presents several morphological and biochemical characteristics of human neuroblastoma cells in culture. Both the human and mouse neuroblastoma cell lines have morphological, biochemical, and electrophysiological attributes of neuronal cells. The chapter describes an earlier study in which large double-minute chromosomes (DMs) and ring forms, such as observed in methotrexate-resistant cells with amplified dihydrofolate reductase genes and in several human neuroblastoma cell lines, were observed in a small number of cases. Although a large number of human tumors with DMs have been described in the literature, the relative proportion of tumors or tumor cell lines characterized by DM-containing cells is low. Various studies of antifolate-resistant rodent cell lines have demonstrated that both homogeneously staining regions and DMs in those cells are cytological indicators of amplified dihydrofolate reductase genes.