ESTABLISHMENT AND CHARACTERIZATION OF 2 CULTURED-CELL LINES DERIVED FROM MALIGNANT RHABDOID TUMORS OF THE KIDNEY

Malignant rhabdoid tumor of the kidney (RTK) is a rare renal sarcoma o f childhood. Its histogenesis is unclear, and it is highly resistant t o multimodality therapy. To elucidate the origin and the oncogenetic p otential of RTK, we investigated the characteristics of 2 newly establ ished RTK cell lines, SWT-1 and SWT-2. Both cell lines were verified t o be RTK, since they did not exhibit contact inhibition and exhibited intermediate filaments, a specific marker for RTK. These cells possess the characteristics of mesenchymal cells based on their positive reac tions with anti-vimentin and anti-laminin antibodies and their negativ e reactions with anti-keratin and anti-desmin antibodies. The karyotyp e of SWT-1 was 46,XX and that of SWT-2 was 46,XX,del(11)(pter-p13::p12 -qter). Since 11p13 is the location of the WT-1 tumor-suppressor gene, and del(11p13) is associated with the aniridia-Wilms'-tumor syndrome, these findings link RTK with Wilms' tumor. While SWT-1 was negative f or the tumor markers examined, SWT-2 released tissue polypeptide antig en into the culture supernatant. No rearrangement or amplification of the myc and ms oncogenes or of the p53 tumor-suppressor gene were dete cted. Wild-type RE protein and cyclin A were expressed in both cells. Our data suggest that these 2 cell lines may be useful in identifying the oncogenetic pattern of RTK. (C) 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.