Propagation of genetically altered tumor cells derived from fine-needle aspirates of primary breast carcinoma

Because primary breast tumors are diagnosed earlier in the clinic, procurem ent of sufficient amounts of tumor tissue for in-depth biological character ization is becoming increasingly difficult. We demonstrate here that relati vely small numbers of tumor cells within samples of fine-needle aspirates ( FNA) can be propagated in culture. Of 25 cases attempted, 12 were passageab le, resulting in up to 10(7) viable cells. FNA-derived cultures were evalua ted for anchorage-independence, c-erb-B2 overexpression, aneusomy, and patt ern of allelic Loss. In every case examined, the cultured cells closely res embled the original tumor tissue and displayed one or more tumor phenotypes , The incidence of erb-B2 overexpressing tumors was similar in passageable and nonpassageable cases (33% versus 31%, respectively). FNAs that are expa nded from a wide range of clinical breast material could be useful for func tional studies presently limited to rare established cell lines, such as ab errant signal transduction and gene regulation, and for testing potential a nticancer vaccines and drugs.