Growth Of Fibroblast-like Cells Research Articles

An Effective Primary Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma In Vitro Model.

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma is a highly malignant disease and research is needed to find new therapeutic approaches. Faithful experimental models are required for this purpose. Here, we describe the specific cell culture conditions enabling the efficient establishment of primary cell culture models. Whereas a classical 10% serum-containing medium resulted in the growth of fibroblast-like cells that outcompeted epithelial cells, we found that the use of specific culture conditions enabled the growth of epithelial tumor cells from HPV+ and HPV− head and neck cancer tissue applicable for research. EpCAM and high Thy-1 positivity on the cell surface were mutually exclusive and distinguished epithelial and fibroblast-like subpopulations in all primary cultures examined and thus can be used to monitor stromal contamination and epithelial cell content. Interestingly, cells of an individual patient developed tumor spheroids in suspension without the use of ultra-low attachment plates, whereas all other samples exclusively formed adherent cell layers. Spheroid cells were highly positive for ALDH1A1 and hence displayed a phenotype reminiscent of tumor stem cells. Altogether, we present a system to establish valuable primary cell culture models from head and neck cancer tissue at high efficiency that might be applicable in other tumor entities as well.

Ability to grow in vitro and character of transformation of synovial fluid cells from patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Growth of cells from the synovial fluid of patients with rheumatoid arthritis in vitro was demonstrated. In the process of transformation five types of cells were observed to appear: macrophages, polykaryocytes, fibroblast-like cells, histiocytes, and lymphocytes. The intensity of cell growth in culture was found to depend on the activity of the disease, and a significant decrease (P<0.01) of this intensity occurred during treatment of the patients. Growth of fibroblast-like cells, with the formation of colonies, is evidence of their possible role in the genesis of inflammatory processes and sclerosis of the joints. The phenomenon of cytopathic interaction between lymphocytes and fibroblast-like cells observed in the experiments is an indicator of autoimmune conflict in the joint and a possible mechanism of self-maintenance of the autoimmune process.

An effective immunodepressive treatment for demonstrating in allogeneic mice the tumorigenic properties of cells grown in vitro (author's transl)

Short intensive treatment with N-diazoacetylglycine amide (DGA) before the inoculum, followed by prolonged daily administration of L-asparaginase (Asnase), was tested for its ability to elicit tumorigenic properties of fibroblast-like cells cultured in vitro. With this treatment progressive tumor growth was obtained in allogeneic mice injected with cells of a transformed subline. Results show that combined use of DGA and Asnase affords a higher probability of proving in vivo the tumorigenic properties of injected cells than in newborm or X-irradiated recipients. Experimental data indicate that L-asparagine depletion does not inhibit the in vitro growth of fibroblast-like cells.