Use of bacterial neutral protease for disaggregation of mouse tumours and multicellular tumor spheroids.

A bacterial neutral protease (from Bacillus Polymixa) has been used to disaggregate both solid mouse tumours and multicellular tumour spheroids. The cell yields obtained were much higher than those obtained using trypsin whilst the plating efficiency of the resultant single cells were comparable. The use of this neutral protease is simple, inexpensive and highly efficient.