MALIGNANCY-RELATED CHARACTERISTICS OF WILD-TYPE AND DRUG-RESISTANT CHINESE-HAMSTER OVARY CELLS

Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell lines are a very popular cell model f or a wide range of studies but are often misused experimentally as a s ubstitute for normal cells. Although CHO was originally derived from n ormal tissue, the cell lines studied here, including the parental wild type, have many characteristics which indicate that they have undergo ne malignant transformation. Biological properties associated with mal ignancy were investigated in this study on wild type CHO cells and 4 d rug resistant sublines, EOT, Col R-22, Pod R11-6, and Vin R-1. We repo rt evidence of tumorigenicity in experimental animals, invasive capaci ty, in vivo and in vitro, protease release by 2 of the cell lines, fea tures related to drug resistance in the mutant sublines, and numerical and structural chromosomal abnormalities.