A technique for developing established cell lines from human osteosarcomas.

A method is described which has been successfully used to develop two human osteogenic sarcomas into established lines in culture. This method provides a means whereby cells growing from explanted tumor tissue can be immediately cloned and the fibroblastic (nonneoplastic) cells thus selected against. Both lines have been passaged for over 100 population doublings since cloning and have retained the ability to form colonies from single cells plated at low density without the use of feeder layers or conditioned medium. In culture, the osteogenic sarcoma cells are nonfibroblastic, pile up, and appear to retain a morphological similarity to the in vivo tumors from which they were derived. A karyotype of cells derived from one of the tumors containing a marker chromosome is also presented.