Relationship of steroid hormone receptors to the cloning of fresh breast cancer tissues.
Thirty-seven samples of human primary breast cancer were processed for direct cloning in methylcellulose (MC) cultures. Out of the 37 specimens plated, 19 (51%) tumors grew with a plating efficiency (PE) of 0.012%. Both growing and nongrowing tumors belonged mostly to the ductal histological type. Neither the use of autologous serum (AS) nor of fetal calf serum (FCS) affected the PE. Moreover, a negative correlation was found between the level of estrogens and especially of progestin receptors and the ability of tumors to grow in MC culture. These findings underline the difficulty of cloning fresh specimens of human solid tumors and indicate that malignant cells displaying high concentrations of progestinic receptors may also display a degree of differentiation which leads to a reduced clonogenic ability.
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D002277:Carcinoma / Q000473:pathology; D002285:Carcinoma, Intraductal, Noninfiltrating / Q000473:pathology; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D002999:Clone Cells; D003114:Colony-Forming Units Assay; D046508:Culture Techniques / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D011960:Receptors, Estrogen / Q000032:analysis*; D011980:Receptors, Progesterone / Q000032:analysis*; D014410:Tumor Stem Cell Assay
D011960:Receptors, Estrogen; D011980:Receptors, Progesterone