Establishment of normal diploid and malignant heteroploid cell lines from non-treated and benzo(a)pyrene treated hamster embryo cell cultures

Summary Two normal diploid control cell lines and a heteroploid malignant transformed cell line from B(a) P treated hamster embryo cell cultures were established. The 14-month-old B(a)P transformed cell line grew 8-times faster than the 20-month-old control cell line. The control cell line showed normal diploid chromosome complement in 93% cells and heteroploidy in 7% cells while B(a)P treated line showed 83% heteroploid cells and only 17% diploid cells. This is the first report on the establishment of diploid hamster cell cultures grown for extended period. Acknowledgments. This work was supported by the French Ministry of Quality of Life, by the Institut National de la Santé et Recherche Médicale, by the S.E.I.T.A. and by Contract No. 12-14-7001-297 of the Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Administered by the Athens, Georgia Area, Richard B. Russell Agricultural Research Center, Athens, Georgia 30604, USA. We thank Mr.B. R. Sharma, Mr.E. J. Radin, Dr.R. Hakim and Dr.Ved Brat for their help during this work.