title: Growth in agar and tumor formation in immunologically incompetent mice as criteria for keratinocyte transformation.
abstract: Established cell lines from 8 human squamous cell carcinomas (SCC) together with normal human keratinocytes, have been investigated for their ability to grow in soft agar and as xenografts when injected as a single cell suspension into immunologically incompetent mice. One of 8 SCC lines formed colonies with efficiencies greater than 1% in soft agar, and only 2 formed progressively growing tumors when injected into animals. It is concluded that these 2 criteria are not reliable markers of malignant transformation in squamous epithelia unless cytological criteria are also applied.
mesh_terms: D000362:Agar; D000818:Animals; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000473:pathology*; D002460:Cell Line; D002471:Cell Transformation, Neoplastic / Q000473:pathology*; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D006801:Humans; D007121:Immunocompetence; D051379:Mice; D008819:Mice, Nude; D009368:Neoplasm Transplantation; D012867:Skin / Q000473:pathology*
chemical_list: D000362:Agar