Development of serum-free media for the growth of human gastrointestinal adenocarcinoma xenografts as primary tissue cultures.

The growth-promoting effect of several hormones and growth factors on eight human colon tumor cell lines (SW 48, SW 403, SW 480, SW 620, SW 948, HT29, LS174T and Caco-2) was studied using seven different chemically defined serum-free media [GF3: Chee's essential medium plus insulin, transferrin and selenium; GF3F: GF3 plus fetuin; GF4: GF3 plus linoleic acid/bovine-serum albumin (BSA); GF5: GF4 plus fetuin, GF5E, GF5 plus EGF; GF5T: GF5 plus triiodothyronine; GF7: GF3 plus EGF, transferrin, insulin, linoleic acid/BSA, oleic acid/BSA and fetuin]. GF5 appears to be the best serum-free medium as it supported continuous growth of all of the colon tumor cell lines. GF5 also supported growth of five of the seven human colon and stomach tumor xenografts as primary tissue cultures. However, the stomach xenograft cells had a very slow growth rate as compared to the colon xenograft cells in the medium. Cells grown in GF5 retained their tumorigenicity in athymic (nude) mice and characteristic cellular morphology. GF7 was the poorest of all of the serum-free media studied as none of the cell lines or xenografts grew in this medium.