Establishment and growth regulation of a novel ovarian cancer cell line from a poorly-differentiated adenocarcinoma: proposal for a new treatment

A continuously growing cultured cell line has been obtained in vitro, starr ing from a specimen of ascites fluid obtained from a patient with ovarian c ancer, in whom a poorly-differentiate adenocarcinoma was diagnosed. This ce ll line, named OC-A1, is routinely grown in standard, serum-supplemented cu lture medium and has been fully stabilized to long-term growth and characte rized for both cultural and genetic parameters. OC-A1 cells express a set o f characteristics, as determined in vitro which, when compared with the in vivo primary tumor, confirm the high malignity of this cancer. in addition, karyotype analysis showed a translocation of chromosome 8 which is correla ted with the amplification of c-myc oncogene. However, the expression of th is oncogene was found to be significantly inhibited by a new regulatory act ivity, recently found to be present in a liposarcoma cell line. Conditioned medium from these cells was indeed able to inhibit the growth of OC-A1 cel ls, arresting their cell cycle in the G(1) phase and inducing them to apopt osis. Finally, the cell programmed death appeared to be related to the expr ession of antioncogene p53.