Cytogenetic and molecular characterization of a newly established neuroblastoma cell line LS

✍ Scribed by Günter Rudolph; Karin Schilbach-Stückle; Rupert Handgretinger; Peter Kaiser; Horst Hameister

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1991
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 535 KB
• Volume: 86
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0340-6717
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00201542

✦ Synopsis

A new human neuroblastoma cell line (LS) that originated from an abdominal tumor of a 16-monthold girl is presented; it was classified, according to Evans, as being stage III. Morphological (dense-core particles) and biochemical characteristics (dopamine-[3-hydroxylase, acetylcholinesterase, neuron-specific-enolase) confirmed the diagnosis. In addition to a slightly variable modal chromosome number of 48 or 49 (because of marker-chromosomes and autosomal trisomies), cytogenetic analysis revealed two constantly appearing chromosomes with homogeneously stained regions (HSR's). The karyotype remained constant over 50 passages in vitro [49,XX, +der5, + 17, +marl, +mar2]. Double minutes were a rare phenomenon and appeared only in a few metaphases. In situ hybridization showed that some of the HSR's consisted of amplified N-myc copies. The distribution of the N-myc copies according to in situ hybridization signals along the HSR's was compared with the data of Southern and Northern blotting analyses. ence of further 17q material (Gilbert et al. 1984;Emanuel et al. 1985;Kaneko et al. 1987).

The HSR and dmin phenomena appear to be intimately linked with the amplification of the cellular oncogene N-myc, which has been determined from direct preparations of tumor tissue and from established neuroblastoma cell lines (Kohl et al. 1983;Gilbert et al. 1983;Schwab et al. 1983). N-myc amplification as a common event in untreated neuroblastomas is highly correlated with the advanced stages of the disease (Brodeur et al. 1984;Grady-Leopardi et al. 1986; Schwab et al. 1984bSchwab et al. , 1985)). N-myc, as a gene with homology to c-myc, together with c-H-ras, is able to transform normal cells in culture (Land et al.