Establishment and characterization of a cultured cell line derived from nitrosamine-induced pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma in Syrian golden hamsters.

Seven kinds of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas induced by N-nitrosobis(2-hydroxypropil)amine in Syrian golden hamsters were established as transplantable tumor lines on syngeneic animals. These tumor lines were all well or moderately differentiated adenocarcinomas, showing various velocities of growth, unrelated to the grade of histological differentiation. A cell line, designated HaP-T1, was established in continuous tissue culture from one of these homografts. The cells grew in a monolayered sheet with an approximately 17-hour population doubling time. Chromosomal analysis revealed that the modal chromosomal number of the cell line was 44. HaP-T1 cells showed apparent tumorigenicity both on syngeneic hamsters and athymic nude mice, but they grew much faster when injected into the former animals. Morphological characteristics of HaP-T1 cells and tumors induced by HaP-T1 inoculation in both animals revealed apparent epithelial characteristics resembling ductal adenocarcinoma of the pancreas. These transplantable tumor models will contribute to the further investigation in the field of pancreatic cancer.