We recently established a cell line derived from pleural effusion from a 13-year-old girl with primary alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS with a chromosomal translocation t[2;13]) in the breast tissue. The cell line was designated as HUMEMS. Cases of primary alveolar RMS swelling in the breast are extremely rare (about 0.2% of all RMSs). Therefore, the HUMEMS cell line is an important material for studying therapeutics for malignant tumors in children. The HUMEMS cell line we isolated consisted of two morphological subtypes. One type (SSN cells) is small in size and has a single nucleus. Another (LMN cells) is large in size and has two or more nuclei. Both SSN cells and LMN cells were immunohistochemically positive for desmin and slightly positive for myoglobin. Our data suggested LMN cells are well-differentiated SSN cells. Moreover, in some of the LMN cells, rapid cell contractions (1-5 times/10 sec) were observed. We investigated the anticancer drug susceptibility of the HUMEMS cell line with an oxygen electrode apparatus (Daikin, DOX-10, JPN) and effect of all-trans-retinoic acid (atRA) to the cell line. The atRA-treatment inhibited proliferation of the HUMEMS cells.

We successfully established a novel cell line (OS-1) derived from human ovarian small cell carcinoma, hypercalcemic type secreted PTH, PTH-rP and ACTH. The OS-1 cell line was established from metastatic focus of uterus. A patient was 25-year-old Japanese woman. The first she received left ovariectomy on April 2002. The histopathological diagnosis was ovarian small cell carcinoma, pT2c, Nx, Mx. Then on June 2003, metastatic focus of uterus was ectomied. A part of the recurrent tumor of uterus was cut into small pieces with razor blades, and dissociated with 0.1% trypsin-0.02% EDTA/ PBS(-) solution at room temperature. The single cells and small cell clusters were seeded into 60mm dishes and cultured in growth medium (GM: DMEM/F12 supplemented with 20% fetal bovine serum and 0.1% non-essential amino acids solution) at 37 degrees C, 4.7% CO2 in humidified air. Medium was exchanged twice a week. The OS-1 cells grew as floating cultures in the dishes. Radioimmunoassay of the conditioned media was revealed that the cultures secreted large amount of PTH, PTHrP and ACTH simultaneously. Susceptibilities of anti-cancer drugs to the OS-1 cells were examined using oxygen electrode meter (Daikin), and the results suggested VLB and TXL were effective, and CDDP, CPT-11, VP-16, VCR, CPA, MMC and CBDCA were not effective. In our knowledge, it is the first report that the cell line secreting PTH, PTHrP and ACTH was successfully established from ovarian small cell carcinoma, hypercalcemic type. We expect that OS-1 cell line contribute to study on the mechanism of ectopic hormone secretion and susceptibility of anti cancer drugs to the small cell carcinoma.

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We successfully established two cell lines, an adenocarcinoma cell line (designated as HIGS) and Epstein-Barr virus-free normal B-lymphocyte cell line (designated as HIGS-BL), derived from a moderately to poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma of the stomach, and examined their characteristics. The tumor delivered to our laboratory from an operating room was cut into small pieces and cultured on the dishes. HIGS and HIGS-BL were established from each individual dish after the onset of primary culture. Although their culture methods were the same, the HIGS cell line was not established from the dishes growing HIGS-BL cells. In addition, HIGS-BL cells were scarcely observed in the HIGS cell dishes. Because of these factors, we have considered until now that HIGS-BL cells may inhibit the growth of HIGS cells or cause damage to HIGS cells by unknown mechanisms. Injection of HIGS-BL cells, other B-lymphocyte cell lines, or the conditioned media of HIGS-BL cells into nude mice bearing HIGS-grafted tumors was performed individually. When HIGS and HIGS-BL cells were co-cultured in the same dishes, HIGS-BL cells inhibited the proliferation of HIGS cells. The inhibition of grafted tumor growth was confirmed by the injection of not only the HIGS-BL cells but also the B-lymphocytes. Furthermore, this inhibition was only observed when the conditioned medium of B-lymphocytes was injected into the nude mice. These results suggested that the secretory products by general B-lymphocytes (including HIGS-BL) have some ability to inhibit the proliferation of HIGS cells. In addition, susceptibility tests to anti-cancer drugs suggested that HIGS cells were sensitive to CDDP, ADM and MMC, and HIGS-BL cells were sensitive to CDDP. If CDDP was used for chemotherapy in the patient, the drug produced atrophy of HIGS-BL cells. The study about HIGS and HIGS-BL cells reported the necessity for novel therapeutic approaches in oncotherapy.