[Establishment and characterization of strain KE-39 derived from human gastric cancer]

We succeeded in establishing a human gastric carcinoma cell line (KE-39) from oncocytes obtained from the primary focus of a 77-year-old male stomach cancer patient. From a histopathological point of view the gastric carcinoma was a poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma exhibiting a funicular from and a structure with a solid vesicular focus. The oncocytes adhered to glass and proliferated in cell clusters, with a doubling time of about 38.4 hours. Upon transplantation of the cancer cells into nude mice, no visible tumors were found, but from a histological point of view poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma similar to the primary focus was found in all cases. With immunological staining they were found to be positive for anti-CEA antibody and anti-CA19-9 antibody, but negative for anti-ICAM-1 antibody. KE-39 is a cell line which was established from the primary focus, and it was reported in the belief that it is a useful cell line, upon the investigation of its cancer metastasis mechanism and cytological characteristics.