Two human colorectal adenoma cell lines, S/RG and S/AN, have been continuously passaged in vitro to determine whether they would immortalize and if specific cytogenetic changes were involved in immortalization and tumor progression. At passage 7, S/RG was highly aneuploid, but had no abnormalities of chromosome 1 (Paraskeva et al, Cancer Res 49: 1282-1286, 1989). With continued passage under two independent sets of growth conditions an isochromosome Iq and derivatives of this isochromosome occurred as specific abnormalities. S/AN was near-diploid at passage 10, with a deletion in lp and monosomy 18. The karyotype at passage 44 showed no change. The cell lines are stable in that they have remained anchorage-dependent and non-tumorigenic after several years in culture and S/AN has retained a near diploid karyotype. These cell lines are therefore highly valuable for further studies of tumor progression in human colorectal carcinogenesis.