Establishment of a highly metastatic human ovarian cancer cell line (HO-8910PM) and its characterization.

To establish a highly metastatic human ovarian cancer cell line and to study its characteristics tissue from the tumor mass of a nude mouse of 7th subtransplantation of the highly metastasizing human ovarian cancer model (NSMO) was cultured in vitro and the cell line HO-8910PM was established. The cell line grew well through 87 passages and the mitotic index, chromosome analysis, morphology under electron microscope and some oncoprotein expression were studied. The cell doubling time was 34.5 h and the mitotic index was 44.3%. The cells were all of epithelial type and most of them were of polygonal shape. Electron microscopic examination showed malignant nuclei with enlarged nucleoli and abundant microvilli. The plating efficiency in soft agar was 31.2%. The cell agglutination appeared in 4 ug/ml PHA. Chromosomal analysis revealed a mode of 54 per cell. The DNA index was 1.57 measured by FCM. Both of them showed hyperdiploid. Positive ER and PR granules were found in the cells. After hetero-transplantation of the cells into three nude mice all of the latter showed tumor growth with metastasis in lungs or lymph nodes. Eight of the nine kinds of oncoprotein detected by immnohistochemical method were found in the cells. The detection for mycoplasma showed negative. After storage in liquid nitrogen cell growth was stable. The cell line HO-8910PM can meet the criteria for the establishment cell lines. This cell line and NSMO model would be very useful in study of the mechanism of cancer metastasis in identifying various cellular factors regulating local and distant metastasis and also in establishing a rational approach for searching after anti-metastatic agents.