Increased EGF receptors on human squamous carcinoma cell lines.

Characterisation and quantitation of epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFR) have been carried out on eight human squamous carcinoma cell lines and the results compared with those from simian virus transformed keratinocytes and normal keratinocytes grown under similar conditions. All cells tested possess both high and low affinity receptors with dissociation constants ranging from 2.4 X 10(-10) M to 5.4 X 10(-9) M. When epidermal growth factor (EGF) binds to its receptor it is internalised and degraded and the receptor is down regulated. Malignant cells and virally transformed cells possess 5-50 times more EGF receptors than normal keratinocytes and one cell line LICR-LON-HN-5 possesses up to 1.4 X 10(7) receptors per cell, which is the highest number yet reported for a cell line. These results are discussed in the context of recent data that suggest that the increased expression of EGF receptors in epidermoid malignancies may be an important component of the malignant phenotype in these tumours.