International Journal of Cell Cloning, Vol 6, 95-105, Copyright © 1988 by AlphaMed Press
High colony-forming efficiency of primary human tumor cells cultured in the adhesive-tumor-cell culture system: improvements with medium and serum alterations
FL Baker, J Ajani, G Spitzer, BJ Tomasovic, M Williams, M Finders and WA Brock
Department of Experimental Radiotherapy, University of Texas, M. D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute, Houston 77030.
The colony-forming efficiency (CFE) of primary human tumor cells cultured
in the adhesive-tumor-cell culture system (ATCCS) using Ham's F12 (F12) or
Eagle's minimum essential medium, alpha modification (alphaMEM) and culture
medium supplemented with either swine, equine or bovine sera were compared.
AlphaMEM supplemented with equine serum provided the highest CFE of the
combinations. The CFE increase due to the change from F12 to alphaMEM was
approximately 5-fold, and the increase due to the change in serum from
swine to equine was approximately 2-fold. Cytokeratin staining showed that
this increase was not due to fibroblast growth. The high-average CFE with
alphaMEM, approximately 3%, means that an inoculum of only 2 X 10(3) cells
is needed to achieve formation of approximately 65 colonies in control
cultures, thereby increasing the performance of this system when used in a
chemosensitivity assay.
