Karyological and isoenzyme characterization of established human sarcoma cell lines

Six established human sarcoma cell lines (giant cell tumor of bone B-5GT, fibrosarcoma, B-6FS, cystosarcoma phylloides B-19CS, synovial sarcoma U-4SS and two osteogenic sarcomas U-20S and U-393OS) have been studied and compared to the normal B-41FB fibroblastic cells and the HeLa cells. For cytogenetic and isoenzyme characterization both conventional and G banding techniques as well as the mobility of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G-6-PD) were employed. All six sarcoma cell lines had karyotype and LDH patterns of human cells. A study of the chromosome counts distribution revealed a large variability from one sarcoma cell line to the other. There was no evidence of any cross-contamination between the lines or by HeLa cells. This conclusion is based on the detection of G-6-PD with B phenotype, the lack of HeLa marker chromosomes in all sarcoma lines and the presence of Y chromosome in U-4SS and U-393OS derived from male donors. In addition, each sarcoma cell line revealed a group of distinctive marker chromosomes which can serve to identify them and help to control cell line specificity during in vitro culturing.