[Several characteristics of tissue cultured human esophageal cell lines]

Seven cell lines have been established from specimens of esophageal cancer bearing patients and examined as to following characteristics. These cells showed various degree of keratinization from scarce tonofilaments to abundant tonofilament bundles within cytoplasm. The ability of tonofilament formation in vitro corresponded well with cancer pearl formation in vivo. but TE-3 strain did not produce tonofilaments whereas it showed marked cancer pearl formation when transplanted to hairless mouse. Consumption of amino acid, arginine, was common to all cell lines and accumulation of glycine and amino acids constituting urea cycle was also common. Serine, aspartic acid and branched chain amino acids were consumed in varying degrees, depending upon the cell line. Especially serine consuming cell line did not consume aspartic acid and vice versa. These seven cell lines showed considerable variety of survival curves for the various agents. These reactions to the drugs seemed to be "individual" and rather independent of the histopathological classification. In conclusion, a fixed method of therapy for cases of esophageal cancer does not seem to be indicated because of the considerable variety in their characteristics of the cancer cells in each patient.