An improved method for the establishment of cell lines from primary skin melanomas

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Abstract
Explants of primary skin melanomas (14) and explants of lymph node metastases (6) from patients were used to establish melanocyte cell lines, and in all 20 experiments the melanocytes became overgrown by fibroblasts. By contrast, 8 melanocyte cell lines without fibroblast contamination were established by mechanical cell separation followed by either direct plating in microwells (5 of 13 primary tumors and 3 of 4 lymph node metastases) or plating of cells from colonies grown in soft agar (3 of 5 cases). Cell crowding and partial (as opposed to total) replacement of the culture medium during the early steps of culture favored the growth of tumor cells. Melanoma cells are possibly subjected to an autocrine type of growth regulation.