Isolation and partial characterization of drug-resistant Aedes albopictus cells

We report here the first isolation and characterization of drug-resistant cell lines from cultured mosquito cells. A BrdU-resistant cell line was isolated from mutagen-treated Aedes albopictus cells, and then used as the parent cell from which sublines resistant to ouabain or alpha-amanitin were derived. The BrdU-resistant cell line and all sublines derived from it were shown to be deficient in thymidine kinase. Evidence that favored attributing the drug-resistant phenotypes to mutant genotypes included (a) the drug-resistant phenotypes were stable for up to 16 months of culture under nonselective conditions, and (b) the frequency of the ouabain-resistant cells in a sensitive population was increased 500-fold (to between 10(-3) and 10(-4) by exposure to the chemical mutagen EMS. Evidence illustrating the usefulness of mutant mosquito cells for the study of the genetics of somatic cells is discussed.