Recovery of a cell surface fetal antigen from circulating immune complexes of melanoma patients

Abstract

A well-characterized 69.5 x 10(3) dalton glycoprotein fetal antigen (FA), isolated from the spent culture medium of a melanoma cell line, UCLA-SO-14 (M14), was utilized to characterize the antigen component of circulating immune complexes (CIC) from melanoma patients. Ten serum samples from five patients with stage II melanoma at 1 and 4 months prior to the clinical detection of recurrent disease were selected for study. The CIC were dissociated with low pH and ultrafiltered through a 100 x 10(3) dalton exclusion limit membrane. The low pH treatment resulted in an increase in antibody titer in eight of ten serum samples. The antibody activity in membrane immunofluorescence was quantitatively inhibited by the filtered antigen fraction and purified FA, suggesting the presence of anti-FA antibodies in the treated serum, which possibly were complexed with FA in the untreated sample. As determined by competitive inhibition in an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, the filtrate (antigen fraction) contained an antigen that was immunologically similar to FA. These results clearly demonstrate that FA, expressed on the cell surface of melanoma cells, is present in CIC of selected melanoma patients.

Characterization of hybrid cells derived from spontaneous fusion events between breast epithelial cells exhibiting stem-like characteristics and breast cancer cells

“…Recently, Ann Chambers summarized the current debate and provided new evidences in this context [41]. She agreed that MDA-MB-435 and M14 cell lines were virtually identical at the karyotype level, but that the conclusion that both cell lines were identical and both of M14 melanoma in origin was inconsistent with the knowledge that the M14 cell line was isolated from a male patient with metastatic melanoma [42], whereas both MDA-MB-435 and M14 cell lines exhibited a female karyotype [41]. As a consequence of that, she concluded that if the cell lines were indeed now identical due to an early contamination of cell stocks, then it would be reasonable to propose that both represent the human MDA-MB-435 breast cancer cell line [41].…”

Triple negative breast cancer cell lines: One tool in the search for better treatment of triple negative breast cancer

“…Consistent with this possibility, analysis using expression profiling, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis and microsatellite analysis of the MDA-MB-435 cell line from multiple sources found that all clones of the cell line are identical to the M14 melanoma cell line [28, 29]. However, the M14 cell line was derived from a 33 year old male with melanoma at UCLA while all of the existing clones of the MDA-MB-435 and M14 cell lines are female [30, 31]. This raises the likely possibility that the existing cultures are all the MDA-MB-435 breast cancer cell line and not the M14 melanoma cell line [30].…”

MDA-MB-435 and M14 Cell Lines: Identical but not M14 Melanoma?

“…Chee and colleagues noted that ''the original culture was derived from an amelanotic lesion metastatic to the buttock of a 33-year-old patient'' (20). In a subsequent report, Wong and colleagues stated that ''a melanoma cell line, UCLA-SO-M14 (M14) was established from a biopsy specimen of a male patient with blood type O'' (21). Additional information about the patient from whom the M14 line was derived does not seem to be available in the literature.…”