Mechanism of T-cell lymphomagenesis: transformation of growth-factor-dependent T-lymphoblastoma cells to growth-factor-independent T-lymphoma cells.

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Abstract
This paper describes the generation of a family of growth-factor-independent aneuploid or pseudodiploid mouse T-cell lymphoma (TCL) cells after the injection into the thymus of growth-factor-dependent diploid T-cell lymphoblastoma (TCLB) cells. In contrast to the donor TCLB cells, the resulting TCL cells could be cloned in semisolid medium, produced local tumors at the site of s.c. injection, and proliferated in a growth-factor-independent fashion in vitro. The induced growth-factor-independent TCL cells were chromosomally and phenotypically unstable and continued to evolve both in vivo and in vitro. After propagation in the thymus, the cells often showed stable translocations in addition to the evolving aneuploidy. Apparently, the chromosome abnormalities induced during the proliferation of growth-factor-dependent TCLB cells in the thymus constitute a general mechanism by which neoplastic cells progress from growth-factor dependency to independency.