[Establishment and characterization of the cell line derived from low differentiated adenocarcinoma of the...

A new human carcinoma cell line (HEC-1), which was derived from low differentiated adenocarcinoma of the endometrium, has been established. Cells from tumor tissues grown in athymic mice were cultured in minimal essential medium supplemented with 20% fetal calf serum. Contaminated mouse fibroblasts were removed from the culture by the absorption of anti-mouse serum. Continuous cell growth (doubling time: 51.6 hrs) could be observed during 64 passages. The cultured cells appeared monolayer and the cellular arrangement was a pavement-like pattern. The morphology of cells was analogous to the one of adenocarcinoma cells. The modal number of chromosomes of the original tumor cells were 46. The t. dic (1; 16)(p21; q24) marker which had been identified as the clonal abnormality in the original tumor cells, was also observed consistently in cultured cells, though the loss of chromosome 19 was disappeared during the passage. This suggested that the rearrangements of the long arm of chromosome 1 played an important role for the endometrial carcinogenesis.