INVITRO TRANSFORMATION OF PRIMARY CULTURES OF NEONATAL BALB-C MOUSE EPIDERMAL-CELLS WITH ULTRAVIOLET-B RADIATION

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  • 1 January 1981
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 41  (7) , 2882-2890
Abstract
Primary epidermal cultures from neonatal BALB/c mice were used to study the carcinogenic effects of UV radiation in vitro. These cultures were irradiated once through a Falcon plastic dish cover with an FS40 sunlamp [UV-B, .lambda. .apprx. 290 to 400 nm]for various lengths of time and maintained for 8-12 wk without subculturing. During this period most cells in the untreated control cultures showed signs of morphological differentiation and eventually died. The cultures irradiated with UV-B radiation behaved in the same manner except that in some dishes small populations of surviving cells began to proliferate and developed into morphologically distinct foci. Seven long-term cell lines were derived from these UV-irradiated primary epidermal cell cultures. Six of these cell lines produced tumors when injected s.c. into normal and/or immunosuppressed syngeneic recipients. These tumorigenic cell lines lacked definitive characteristics of differentiated epidermal cells, but the cells possessed intermediate junctions, suggesting that they were of epithelial origin. Some of these in vitro-transformed cell lines appeared to be highly antigenic inasmuch as they grew preferentially in immunosuppressed BALB/c mice as compared to their growth in normal syngeneic recipients.