Alterations in Growth Properties and Cellular Proteins of Cloned Hamster Lung Fibroblasts during Long-Term Culture

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Abstract
Established clones of initially normal hamster lung fibroblasts (DON) were examined over the course of long-term serial culture for the acquisition of growth properties usually ascribed to the transformed phenotype. With time, 1 clone (12A) expressed a full range of transformation-associated characteristics including proliferation in low serum medium, growth to high saturation density, multinucleate cell formation in response to cytochalasin B, karyotypic instability, anchorage independence, and tumorigenicity in nude mice. Gel electrophoretic analysis of selected passage levels of nontumorigenic and tumorigenic DON 12A cells revealed changes in peptide composition which were related, not to the acquisition of tumorigenicity, but to adaptation to long-term culture. Any study utilizing long-term cell cultures should consider that alterations in gene expression which appear over the course of serial culture may be unrelated to specific phenotypic changes associated with transformation.