title: Differences in inducibility of morphological differentiation of parental cells, selected variant cells and cells from spontaneous metastases of mouse neuroblastoma cells.
abstract: The in vitro sensitivities to differentiating agents of a murine neuroblastoma cell line (N18) and a selected variant cell line (N18-LM5) were examined. In addition, the sensitivities to differentiating agents of cells from spontaneous metastases produced by N18 cells were examined. When N18 cells (1 X 10(5) cells/mouse) were injected into the lateral tail vein of syngeneic A/J mice, only a few metastatic nodules formed in the liver and lung, while similar injection of N18-LM5 cells produced larger numbers of metastatic nodules. Exposure of N18 cells to differentiating agents, such as dibutyryl cyclic 3':5'-AMP (db-cAMP), prostaglandin E1, and dexamethasone, resulted in induction of differentiation in terms of neurite extension. N18-LM5 cells responded to differentiating agents to a greater extent than N18 cells, and most of the cells extended neurites when they were exposed to 1 mM db-cAMP for 3 days. On the other hand, not all cell lines from spontaneous metastases produced by N18 cells responded to db-cAMP. These results suggest that the colonizing potential of neuroblastoma cells is not necessarily correlated with loss of responsiveness to differentiating agents and that various spontaneous metastases show heterogeneity in responsiveness to differentiating agents.
mesh_terms: D000527:Alprostadil; D000818:Animals; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D002460:Cell Line; D000242:Cyclic AMP / Q000494:pharmacology; D003907:Dexamethasone / Q000494:pharmacology; D051379:Mice; D008805:Mice, Inbred A; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D009368:Neoplasm Transplantation; D009374:Neoplasms, Experimental / Q000473:pathology; D009447:Neuroblastoma / Q000473:pathology*; D011458:Prostaglandins E / Q000494:pharmacology
chemical_list: D011458:Prostaglandins E; D003907:Dexamethasone; D000242:Cyclic AMP; D000527:Alprostadil