Human renal carcinoma: characterization of five new cell lines.

Five human renal carcinoma cell lines have been established in long-term tissue culture. Two of the cell lines, UM-RC-2 and UM-RC-3, produced clear cell tumors in athymic nude mice. The cell lines have been characterized by staining with oil red O, doubling time in vitro, and number of chromosomes. Although protein A assay reactivity of autologous combinations of patient's sera and tumor cells were seen with all five cell lines, similar binding was also found with autologous normal kidney cultures. However, the immune adherence assay demonstrated low titer autologous reactivity with two renal carcinoma cell lines but not with the corresponding normal kidney cultures. This strongly suggest host recognition of tumor-associated antigens. Characterization of cell surface antigens with murine monoclonal antibodies demonstrated shared reactivity between normal kidney tubular cells and renal carcinoma cells. Antibody A68.11 reacted strongly with all five cell lines. Antibody A80 bound to only UM-RC-3 and UM-RC-6.