Properties of metastatic and nonmetastatic cloned subpopulations of an ultraviolet-light-induced murine fibrosarcoma of recent origin.

The present studies were designed to evaluate whether tumor cell properties such as growth rate, chromosome number, anchorage-independent growth, susceptibility to lymphocyte- or macrophage-mediated lysis in vitro, and antigenicity in vivo correlated with metastatic potential. A murine fibrosarcoma of recent origin induced in a C3H- mouse by chronic irradiation with ultraviolet light was used. Cells from the parent tumor and its clones were grown in culture. No single property of tumor cells that was measured in vitro or in vivo predicted or correlated with their metastatic potential. In order for metastasis to occur, all steps of the process must be completed. Therefore, interruption of the sequence at any stage can prevent the production of visible metastasis. It was concluded that the search for a single property common to all metastatic cells in a large variety of neoplasms is likely to be unproductive.