Specific chromosomal abnormalities characterize four established cell lines derived from malignant human gliomas.

The four permanent human glioma-derived cell lines reported here are the first such lines for which the karyotypes have been followed from the original biopsies through the establishment of the lines in culture. Although ploidy changes were seen, each line retained either distinctive marker chromosomes or the overall original chromosomal distribution allowing the origin of each line to be established with certainty. D-263 MG expresses glial fibrillary acidic protein, all lines except D-245 MG are tumorigenic in athymic mice, and each line displays a unique pattern with respect to in vitro growth parameters and expression of biochemically defined markers, oncofetal antigens and lymphoid-associated markers. D-245 MG and D-259 MG are able to grow in the absence of supplemental glutamine; glutamine synthetase was detected in these cell lines both by immunocytochemistry and by direct assay. Thus, the four permanent human glioma-derived cell lines described here are representative of glioma lines in their general characteristics. D-259 MG retains numerous double minute chromosomes (DMs), D-263 MG contains two marker chromosomes with breaks in 9p, and D-247 MG and D-245 MG with stemlines containing 96 and 89 chromosomes contain eight and six normal copies (respectively) of chromosome No. 7. The retention in these four cell lines of the most common chromosomal abnormalities seen in biopsies of malignant human gliomas provides the opportunity to investigate the meaning of these specific chromosomal changes.