New human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cell line with highly metastatic potential (MHCC97) and its expressions of the factors associated with metastasis

Abstract

Human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common types of tumour, especially in Asia and Africa (Anderson et al, 1992;Okuda, 1992;Parkin et al, 1993). HCC is characterized by extensive carcinoma cell infiltration and metastasis. Although advances have been made in liver cancer therapies, most cancer deaths still result from metastatic disease, so metastasis has been the greatest obstacle to successful tumour treatment. The poor understanding of the molecular mechanisms responsible for the disseminated metastasis, which would be partly due to the lack of ideal samples and models for study, has hindered the development of effective antimetastatic therapies. Although several reports of the establishment of HCC cell lines were available (Chen, 1963;Alexander et al, 1976;Dong et al, 1980), none have demonstrated prominent metastatic potential. The human cell line with a metastatic potential from primary tumour or metastatic lesions would permit metastatic mechanisms to be studied further. However, the cancer cells from the surgical samples or metastatic lesions can only be maintained in primary culture for a short time before cellular senescence occurs. The aim of this study was to establish a human HCC cell line with a metastatic potential. We successfully established a new HCC cell line with a highly metastatic potential derived from subcutaneous xenograft of a metastatic model of human HCC in nude mice (LCI-D20) (Sun et al, 1996) by improving the conventional method of establishing a cell line -alternating cell culture in vivo and growth in nude mice. In this paper the processes of establishing a new human HCC cell line MHCC97 and some characteristics, including observation of some factors associated with metastasis, are reported. MATERIALS AND METHODS Specimens and in vitro cultureSeventy-eight primary cultures were taken from subcutaneous or intrahepatic xenografts of LCI-D20 nude mouse models. The model was developed by orthotopic inoculation of an intact tumour tissue of an intrahepatic disseminated lesion from a 39-year-old Chinese male patient with HCC (Zhong-Shan Hospital, Shanghai Medical University). Abnormal alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) and HBsAg were found in serum from this patient. The LCI-D20 model represents 100% metastases to the lungs, lymph nodes and intrahepatic spreading (Sun, 1996). These xenografts were removed and used for primary culture in vitro by different culture methods (tissue fragments or single-cell Summary A new human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cell line with a highly metastatic potential was established from subcutaneous xenograft of a metastatic model of human HCC in nude mice (LCI-D20) by means of alternating cell culture in vitro and growth in nude mice. The line, designated MHCC97, has been cultivated for 18 months and subcultured for more than 90 passages. The line was showed to be of human origin by karyotype analysis. The cells were either grown as compact colonies (in clusters) or as a monolayered sheet with about 31 h of population-doubling time, exhibited ty...

Radiation enhances long-term metastasis potential of residual hepatocellular carcinoma in nude mice through TMPRSS4-induced epithelial–mesenchymal transition

“…MHCC97L cell line is a human HCC cell line with metastatic potential, derived from MHCC97 HCC cell line. 16 Cells were maintained in Deulbecco's Modified Eagle Medium, supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum and 1% streptomycin/penicillin at 37 1C with humidified 95% air and 5% CO 2 . All MMP-2-related experiments were done under serum-free conditions.…”

Notch1‐Snail1‐E‐cadherin pathway in metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma

“…27,28 The cells were cultured in Dulbecco's modified Eagle medium (DMEM) (Invitrogen, Gibco, Carlsbad, CA) containing 10% fetal bovine serum (Invitrogen) plus streptomycin and penicillin (Sigma, St. Louis, MO) at 37 C and 5% CO 2 . The Hep3B and PLC cell lines were defined as nonmetastatic cells because these cells could not metastasize from the liver to the lung in an orthotopic liver implantation mouse model (data not shown), whereas 97L and 97H cells were metastatic cells because 40% (97L) to 100% (97H) liver to lung metastatic behavior was observed in a mouse model.…”

Knockdown of FoxM1 by siRNA interference decreases cell proliferation, induces cell cycle arrest and inhibits cell invasion in MHCC-97H cells in vitro

“…The baseline mRNA levels of FoxM1 in MHCC-97 cell lines [6,7] , including MHCC-97H (an invasive HCC cell line) and MHCC-97L (a less invasive HCC cell line), were determined by RT-PCR. The results showed that the FoxM1 gene was highly expressed in MHCC-97H compared with MHCC-97L (P<0.05) (Figure 2A).…”