Malignant transformation of fusion cells derived from co-culturing human glioma cell line SU3 with murine macrophages / 中华微生物学和免疫学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate whether the malignant transformation of macrophages ( Mφ) in glioma mesenchyme was induced by the fusion of glioma cells ( SU3 ) and Mφ.Methods SU3 cells transfected with red fluorescent protein genes were co-cultured in vitro with Mφexpressing enhanced green fluorescent protein.The cell lineages with RFP+/GFP+dual-color fluorescence were established by using monoclonal selection method.A series of tests for analyzing cancer-related phenotypes, tumorigenicity and specific markers for murine macrophage were performed.Results (1) A few of dual-color fluorescent cells were observed in the co-culture.Three monoclonal cell lineages (C3, C4 and C12) were obtained success-fully.(2) Three types of cells including RFP+, EGFP+and RFP+/EGFP+cells were formed during the cul-ture of monoclonal C12 cell lineage.The percentage of EGFP+cells was increased along the extended culture time and increased passages.Then, EGFP+cells gradually became the predominant cell population.Nota-bly, the percentage of RFP+/EGFP+cells were decreased and maintained at a low level, but the RFP+cells almost disappeared.(3) EGFP+cells from monoclonal C12 cell lineage showed the malignant characteristics such as loss of contact inhibition, rapid proliferation andchromosome aneuploidy, as well as high tumorigenic rate in nude mice (5/5).They also expressed macrophage specific marker CD68 and showed a large number of telocentric chromosomes.Conclusion The results of this study suggested that the malignant transforma-tion of host macrophages as previously observed in solid tumor might be induced by cell fusion occurred be-tween human glioma cells and macrophages.Along with the previous evidences showing the isolation of the malignantly transformed macrophages ( ihCTC) from solid tumor tissue of tumor-bearing mice, the results confirmed an objective existence of malignant transformation of host macrophages in tumor microenvironment. The malignant transformation of host cells induced by fusion with tumor cells revealed not only a new under-standing for the progression of tumor and cancer heterogeneity, but also new targets for cancer therapy.