Isolation of human adenoid cystic carcinoma cell lines

Abstract

Three adenoid cystic carcinoma cell lines were isolated from different patients. In the three lines, the cultures contained two types of cells during early passages; one type was small epithelial cells and the other was large flattened cells. Further passages resulted in a slowing of growth and conversion of the epithelial cells into large flattened cells, suggesting that both types of cells had the same origin. The large flattened cells being similar to myoepithelial cells tended to form a pseudocyst, which is a specific architecture of adenoid cystic carcinoma. These cells were able to display. the potential for production of an extracellular matrix including basal lamina and collagen like filaments.
These findings suggest that the isolated cell lines are essential cells for tumor formation consisting of peculiar stroma.