Small dose of 2-deoxy-D-glucose completely excludes the overgrowth of fibroblasts

The present work has been undertaken to assess the effects of a small dose of 2-deoxy-D-glucose on proliferation of fibroblasts in culture by morphological criteria. Fibroblasts in culture medium with 2-deoxy-D-glucose proliferated only to a slight degree, but cell confluence was not achieved. They became swollen and the cytoplasm was increasingly occupied by lucent area. These changes became prominent on the 10th day of incubation. When cell mixtures of fibroblasts and TYK-nu (cell line of undifferentiated adenocarcinoma of the ovary) or TYK-nu only were incubated under the influence of 2-deoxy-D-glucose, the degenerative changes aforementioned were observed only in fibroblasts, while no significant changes were ascertained in the cell line of the cancer by morphological criteria. These results suggest that a small dose of 2-deoxy-D-glucose shows considerable promise in specific inhibition of fibroblastic proliferation during the process of establishing the cell line of the cancer.