Inhibition of tumor cell growth by retinoids

Abstract

Publisher Summary The growth and differentiation of various normal and malignant cells in culture are modulated by retinoids. Most of the cultured malignant cells that have been analyzed for responsiveness to retinoids exhibit inhibition of anchorage-dependent growth and anchorage-independent growth. This chapter describes various methods used to analyze the growth inhibitory effects that retinoids exert on cultured cells. Retinoids inhibit the growth of numerous tumor cells and suppress the expression of the transformed phenotype as represented by anchorage-independent growth. The effective concentrations of retinoids for inhibition of tumor cell growth in culture are often pharmacological and not physiological. However, quite a large number of tumor cells are inhibited considerably even at physiological dose. Often cells that are only marginally inhibited in monolayer culture show marked inhibition of anchorage-independent growth in agarose, suggesting that the inhibition of anchorage-independent growth is a more sensitive assay for the suppression of the growth of tumor cells by retinoids.