Establishment and characterisation of three new human ovarian carcinoma cell lines and initial evaluation of their potential in experimental chemotherapy studies.

Three new human cell lines have been established from biopsy specimens of ovarian cystadenocarcinomas: line JA-1 was derived from a primary "solid" tumour from an untreated patient, whilst the other lines were derived from ascites from patients previously treated with chlorambucil plus either cyclophosphamide (TR175) or cisplatin (TR170). Their in vitro characteristics are compared with those of the established SK-OV-3 line of similar origin. Each line has a distinct morphology and expresses a unique isozyme profile and karyotype. All 4 lines have comparable population doubling times of 28-38 hr. Only 3 lines reproducibly form colonies in soft agar, but the JA-1 line, which failed to clone, readily produces xenografts in nude mice. Drug sensitivity testing, using clonogenic or growth-inhibition assays, shows that these lines express a wide range of sensitivities to cisplatin (greater than 20-fold), with the TR175 cells proving particularly sensitive, but a narrower range of sensitivity (less than or equal to 10-fold) to adriamycin. Following 6 24-hr pulsed exposures in vitro to drug concentrations between IC50 and IC90 values, significant resistance develops to adriamycin in each line tested. In contrast, with cisplatin treatment, all lines retain their original sensitivities, except for TR170 cells exposed to the highest concentration, which express cisplatin resistance.