INFLUENCE OF CULTURE MEDIA ON THE MORPHOLOGICAL-DIFFERENTIATION OF THE PC-3 AND DU145 PROSTATIC NEOPLASTIC CELL-LINES

The concept of differentiation of prostate cancer in terms of morphonu clear characteristics and population dynamics was investigated on the PC-3 and DU145 cell lines. A software based on the concept of Voronoi paving was set up in order to characterize the structure of these cell lines growing in vitro on histological slides. The morphonuclear char acteristics were assessed by means of the digital cell image analyses of Feulgen-stained nuclei. The in vitro ''morphonuclear'' and ''pseudo -tissular'' differentiations of the PC-3 and DU145 cells were describe d in terms of the use of various culture media, i.e., media supplement ed with either 10% (F10 medium) or 1% (F1 medium) fetal calf serum and with (or without) platelet-derived growth factor and dihydrotestoster one (PA10 and PA1 media). The present data reveal that the PC-3 cell l ine would be more hormone-sensitive than the DU145 one. Indeed, decrea sing the FCS concentration in the culture medium while adding DHT and PDGF led to marked modifications to the morphonuclear characteristics of the PC-3 cells, but not to the DU145 cells. These modifications cor responded to an increase in nuclear size occurring concomitantly with chromatin decondensation. In the same way, spectacular modifications i n terms of medium-induced pseudo-tissular differentiation were observe d in the PC-3 cell line, but not in the DU145 one. Such modifications corresponded to an increase in clone size related to an increase in th e mean distances between neighboring cell nuclei in a given clone. Thu s, according to the criteria defined in this study, the PC-3 cell line would seem to maintain a higher degree of differentiation than the DU 145 cell line. (C) 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.