Sustained Propagation of Sarcoma 180 in Tissue Culture.

Abstract

A strain of sarcoma 180 maintained by routine trocar implant passage in CFW mice was isolated and serially propagated in vitro from biopsy specimens in a medium containing only the growth factors demonstrably essential for the HeLa cell and the L strain of mouse fibroblasts. The genera-tion time in these media is circa 30 hours and this cell line is now in the 32d transplant, having undergone more than 100 generations during 230 days in vitro. Inocula prepared from these cultures after 215 days in vitro have produced characteristic sarcomata within 3-5 days in 100% of the CFW mice implanted subcutaneously with 1.0 x 105 or more cells. The ED50 in CFW mice is circa 4.5 - 5.0 x 103 cells, and the latent period between injection and the development of palpable tumors increases with decreasing inocula.