Re-characterization of established human retinoblastoma cell lines

Retinoblastoma (RB) is the most common malignant intraocular childhood tumor. Forty years after their first description, in the present study, we re-characterized seven established retinoblastoma cell lines with regard to their RB1 mutation status, morphology, growth pattern, endogenous apoptosis levels, colony formation efficiency in soft agar and invasiveness and dissemination capacity in chick chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) assays. All RB cell lines predominantly resemble small epithelioid cells with little cytoplasm and large nucleus, which mainly grow in cell clusters, but sometimes form chain-like structures with incident loops or three-dimensional aggregates. We observed different growth rates for the different retinoblastoma cells investigated. RBL-30, RBL-13 and RBL 383 cells grew very slowly, whereas Y-79 cells grew fastest under our culture conditions. Apoptosis rates likewise differed with highest cell death levels in RB 383 and RB 355 and lowest in WERI-Rb1 and RBL-15. Contradicting former reports, six of the seven RB cell lines analyzed were able to form colonies in soft agarose after single cell seeding within 3 weeks of incubation. Upon inoculation of four out of seven RB cell lines on the dorsal CAM, GFP-positive cells were detectable in the ventral CAM and two RB cell lines caused tumor development, indicating their intravasation and dissemination potential. All RB cell lines exhibited the potential to extravasate from the capillary system after intravenous CAM injection. Our study provides valuable new details for future therapy-related retinoblastoma basic research in vitro.