Karyotypic analyses of metastatic and non-metastatic mouse tumor cells by G- and C-banding.
Cytogenetic studies using G- and C-banding were performed in order to compare non-metastasizing BWO mouse thymoma cells with their metastatic BW-IS-Li and BW-O-Li1 variants. BW-IS-Li and BW-O-Li1 cells were obtained from liver metastases generated respectively after intra-splenic or intravenous inoculation of mice with BWO cells. BW-O-Li1 cells contained normal chromosomes 4 and 18 which were never found in BWO or BW-IS-Li cells. As they also contained several markers common to the BWO parental cell line, our data provide definite evidence that the BW-O-Li1 cell line results from spontaneous in vivo cell fusion between a BWO cell and a normal host cell. Chromosome 3 was also shown to be "rearrangement-prone" and was less represented among metastatic cell variants. These variants also lack a C-band-deficient marker chromosome which was found in most of the BWO cells. However, as many complex chromosome rearrangements were found in all 3 cell lines, at least some chromosomal material may be present in a hidden form. We were not able in this particular cell system to link the presence or absence of a single chromosome, chromosome fragment or rearrangement to the acquisition or expression of metastatic properties.
D000818:Animals; D002460:Cell Line; D002869:Chromosome Aberrations; D002871:Chromosome Banding; D007621:Karyotyping; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000556:secondary; D051379:Mice; D009374:Neoplasms, Experimental / Q000235:genetics*; D010641:Phenotype; D013945:Thymoma / Q000235:genetics; D014178:Translocation, Genetic