title: High colony-forming efficiency of primary human tumor cells cultured in the adhesive-tumor-cell culture system: improvements with medium and serum alterations.
abstract: 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.
authors: Department of Experimental Radiotherapy, University of Texas, M. D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute, Houston 77030.
authors: F L
authors: FL
authors: Baker
authors: J
authors: J
authors: Ajani
authors: G
authors: G
authors: Spitzer
authors: B J
authors: BJ
authors: Tomasovic
authors: M
authors: M
authors: Williams
authors: M
authors: M
authors: Finders
authors: W A
authors: WA
authors: Brock
mesh_terms: D002448:Cell Adhesion; D003114:Colony-Forming Units Assay; D003470:Culture Media; D006801:Humans; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured / Q000473:pathology*; D014410:Tumor Stem Cell Assay
chemical_list: D003470:Culture Media