Application of in vitro soft agar techniques for growth of tumor cells to the study of colon cancer.

An in vitro assay to measure the clonogenic or colony-forming capability of cancer cells present in biopsy samples has recently been applied to study the biology and drug-sensitivity of a variety of human neoplasms. This approach appears to be suitable for study of the tumor stem or progenitor cells present in malignant effusions from patients with colonic carcinoma. In our preliminary studies, morphology of the tumor colonies by inverted microscopy and with Papanicolaou staining of dried agar plating layers as well as immunofluorescent localization with a specific antiserum to human carcinoembrionic antigen have been used as markers of the neoplastic origin of colon tumor colony-forming cells. Successful application of this assay to colonic solid tumors will require improvement in techniques for disaggregation of viable clonogenic cells. We anticipate that short term clonal assays will have increasing use for clinical and biological studies of human colon cancer.