Selection of temperature-resistant mutants of Chinese hamster cells for growth on D-galactose

Somatic cell variants of Chinese hamster V79 were selected for rapid growth on D-galactose at high temperatures. Their phenotypes are stable after many generations in the absence of selection pressure. They clone in D-galactose at temperatures at which the wild type cannot, while in D-glucose, the variants and the wild type appear to have the same growth properties. The use of such variants should be very important for the study of gene regulation of carbohydrate metabolism in mammalian cells.