Characteristics of Hodgkin's disease-derived cell lines

In the last 3 years we were able to establish five long-term in vitro cell cultures from biopsy specimens taken preterminally from four patients with histologically proven Hodgkin's disease (nodular sclerosing type, clinical stage IVB). Four of the lines are continuously proliferating in vitro; one culture stopped growth for unknown reasons after 7 months. When culture conditions were modulated, the first culture, L 428, gave rise to two sublines: L 428 KS, after adaptation to calf serum, and L 428 KSA, permanently growing as an adherent monolayer line after treatment with a phorbol ester (12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate) for 3 weeks. Cell-marker analysis by conventional means (SIg, cIg, rosette formation, Epstein-barr virus reactivity, cytochemistry, phagocytosis, and lysozyme production) and with monoclonal antibodies directed against various human lymphoid, myeloid, and monocytoid antigens showed that the tested cell lines are clearly different from all hitherto described hematopoietic lines; they most likely represent a cell type resembling an early myeloid-monocytoid progenitor cell. Conditioned medium of the L 428 cells and its two sublines showed colony-stimulating factor activity and suppression of spontaneous cell-mediated cytolysis of L 428 KS and K 562 cells.