Establishment and characterization of 12 human colorectal-carcinoma cell lines

In this article, we describe the characteristics of 12 human colorectal-car cinoma cell lines established from 6 primary tumors and 6 metastatic sites of II Korean colorectal-carcinoma patients, including the morphology in viv o and in vitro and mutations of K-ras2, p15, p16, p53, APC, beta-catenin, h MLH1 and hMSH2 genes in vitro. No lines were contaminated with Mycoplasma o r bacteria. All lines were proven to be unique by DNA-fingerprinting analys is. All lines expressed the surface carcino-embryonic antigen and secreted it into the supernatant fluid, The morphological correlation between the or iginal tumors and cultured cells suggested that the original tumors showing mucinous adenocarcinoma correlated with floating aggregates in culture, an d degree of desmoplasia in the original tumor correlated with attached grow th in culture, Five of the cell lines showed mutations in the K-ras2 gene, and 6 of the cell lines showed mutations in the p53 gene. The p15 gene was deleted in 2 cell lines, and the p16 gene was hypermethylated in 3 cell lin es. The mutation of mismatch-repair genes (hMLH1 and hMSH2) was found in 4 lines, the APC gene and beta-catenin gene were mutated in 9 and 2 lines res pectively, These well-characterized colorectal-cancer cell lines should ser ve as useful tools for investigating the biological characteristics of colo rectal cancer. (C) 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.