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Updated: Aug 31, 2026

Generation and Isolation of Cell Cycle-arrested Cells with Complex Karyotypes
Published on: April 13, 2018
Chromosomal variations within aneuploid cancer lines
Takahiro Isaka1, Andrea L Nestor, Tadahiro Takada
1Department of Surgery, and the MCO Microscopy Imaging Center, Medical College of Ohio, Toledo, Ohio 43614-5804, USA.
Abstract:
Aneuploid cancers exhibit a wide spectrum of clinical aggressiveness, possibly because of varying chromosome compositions. To test this, karyotypes from the diploid CCD-34Lu fibroblast and the aneuploid A549 and SUIT-2 cancer lines underwent fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and DAPI counterstaining. The number of DAPI-stained and FISH-identified chromosomes, 1-22, X,Y, as well as structural abnormalities, were counted and compared using the chi(2), Mann-Whitney rank sum test and the Levene's equality of variance. Virtually all of the evaluable diploid CCD-34Lu karyotypes had 46 chromosomes with two normal-appearing homologues. The aneuploid chromosome numbers per karyotype were highly variable, averaging 62 and 72 for the A549 and SUIT-2 lines, respectively. However, the A549 chromosome numbers were more narrowly distributed than the SUIT-2 karyotype chromosome numbers. Furthermore, 25% of the A549 chromosomes had structural abnormalities compared to only 7% of the SUIT-2 chromosomes. The chromosomal compositions of the aneuploid A549 and SUIT-2 cancer lines are widely divergent, suggesting that diverse genetic alterations, rather than chance, may govern the chromosome makeups of aneuploid cancers.
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