Characteristics of multicellular spheroids formed by primary cultures of human thyroid tumor cells

Features of multicellular tumor spheroids (MCTS) differed depending on their types of cells. MCTS formed by 4000 human thyroid primary culture epithelial tumor cells displayed diameters between 0.31 and 0.33 mm within 2 days regardless of the stage of malignancy of the originating tumors. Their cellular composition reflected that of the originating tumor in regard to DNA content and the expression of cytokeratin, vimentin, as well as thyroglobulin. During the following 3 weeks, their sizes increased up to diameters of 0.42 mm when their cells had been derived from carcinomas, and MCTS originating from adenomas stopped growing within the next 2 days. After 8 days of incubation, proliferating cells were only found in carcinoma MCTS. The cells were randomly distributed over the total volume of the spheroids, which displayed irregular cell arrangements but not concentric cell layers and did not form necrotic centers.