Radiation-induced murine leukemia ERLD in cell culture

The lymphoblastic leukemia ERLD, induced by radiation in a C57BL/6 mouse, was established in culture. Three cell lines, ERLD/Y3, ERLD/T ERLD/Two, have been in culture for nearly three years. Their isolation and growth depended upon the presence of 2-mercaptoethanol, glutamine, and asparagine in the medium. The cell lines, except ERLD/T, possess the TL antigen, a characteristic of ERLD and of other murine leukemia cells in vivo and of normal thymus cells of certain mouse strains, but not of C57BL/6. A distinctive submetacentric marker chromosome is also common to ERLD and the derived cell lines. The successful establishment of ERLD in culture provides a malignant thymocyte-related cell system for studies in nutrition and immunobiology.