CORRELATION BETWEEN AIDS-RELATED KAPOSI-SARCOMA HISTOLOGICAL GRADE AND IN-VITRO BEHAVIOR - REDUCED EXOGENOUS GROWTH-FACTOR REQUIREMENTS FORISOLATES FROM HIGH-GRADE LESIONS

Kaposi sarcoma, the most common AIDS associated malignancy, affects 10 -30% of all AIDS patients. To date, research into the biological chara cteristics of AIDS-related Kaposi sarcoma (AIDS-KS) derived cell lines has been based on cultures established from skin explants or pleural effusions/peritoneal fluids. We have established several AIDS-KS lines from biopsy confirmed oral mucosal and epidermal AIDS-KS lesions and have found a correlation between AIDS-KS lesional grade and in vitro c ellular growth characteristics. In comparison to epidermal AIDS-KS les ions, mucosal AIDS-KS lesions frequently possessed both a more advance d histologic grade and demonstrated a greater capacity to proliferate in minimal medium. We report the ability of AIDS-KS isolates from high grade lesions to sustain proliferation (greater than 60 population do ubling levels) in medium not supplemented with endothelial cell growth supplement and/or cytokine rich conditioned medium. These findings in dicate that AIDS-KS cells isolated from high grade lesions have reduce d requirements for exogenously provided growth supplements, and sugges t that increased autologous cytokine production accompanies AIDS-KS le sional progression.