[A human cell line panel for screening anti-cancer drugs]

Development of more useful screening systems for anti cancer drugs is important to accelerate efficiency of finding new leads. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has recently developed a unique screening methodology using a human cell line panel. We have established a new human cell line panel according to this news methodology, and studied its feasibility. Concentration of a certain sample to inhibit proliferation of tumor cells of the panel varies and gives a characteristic pattern called a "finger print". Analysis of finger prints of more than 100 compounds, including currently used anti cancer drugs, revealed that finger prints appeared to be similar among drugs with the same mode of action. One can predict the mode of action of sample compounds by applying the above feature to the analysis of samples, which is the most variable advantage of this method. Then, one may select promising compounds by considering their effective concentrations and finger prints. Secondary screening by a panel of nude mice xenografts that correspond to cultured cell lines will follow the above screening. We consider that the in vitro and in vivo screening by a human cell line panel is a new and useful system for evaluation of anti cancer drugs.