Isolation and characterization of two novel colon cancer cell lines from Chinese patients.

Incidence of colon cancer has increased rapidly in China. Although many colon cancer cell lines have been established previously, most of them were derived from patients from western countries. Epidemiological, clinical, cytogenetic, and molecular biological studies showed that there are considerable differences between Chinese and western countries colon cancer patients. Therefore, establishment of novel colon cancer cell line from Chinese is useful for studying the racial difference of this disease and can be important for studying the pathogenesis of colon cancer in China. In our laboratory, two novel continuous human colon cancer cell lines, SHT-1 and SHH-1, have been established in vitro from Chinese patients, and both cell lines have been passaged for 4 yr, and they have been continuously subcultured with more than 800 population doubling and without signs of senescence. Both cell lines were obtained from primary tumor tissues during colon cancer surgery. Cells grew rapidly with a doubling time of 36-39 h and a plating efficiency of 26-28%. These cells exhibited an epithelial morphology and expressed cytokeratin. Tumor developed in severe combined immunodeficient (SCID) mice 4-6 wk after inoculated subcutaneously with the cultured cancer cells. Karyotypic analysis and comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) analysis in SHT-1 cells revealed a hypertriploid modal number of 76 with numerous numerical and structural abnormalities previously linked to colon cancer. In another cell line (SHH-1), CGH analysis revealed that -1p13 was the only cytogenetic anomaly.

Isolation and cultivation of human articular chondrocytes.

Adult human articular chondrocytes were isolated from surgically excised articular cartilage from 15 patients suffering from trauma or disease of the knee. Cells were isolated with an enzymatic digestion method and cultured with F12 medium supplemented with serum. The effects of serum and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) on the growth of cultured chondrocytes were studied. Serum stimulated the growth of chondrocytes at concentrations from 1-30%. bFGF significantly stimulated the growth of chondrocytes in a dose-dependent manner at concentrations from 1-100 ng/ml. Chondrocytes grew well in F12 medium supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS). These cultured chondrocytes could be passaged for many generations and revealed an average of 2,702-fold increase of cell numbers during 2-6 months period (cumulative population doublings = 11 times). Cumulative population doublings increased to 24 times in cell cultured with medium supplemented with bFGF (10 ng/ml). Immunocytochemical study using anti-S-100 antibodies demonstrated that these cultures were pure cell cultures of chondrocytes. We have demonstrated that cell cultures of adult human articular chondrocytes can be established with these methods. Cultured chondrocytes provide an in vitro model system for studying the physiology and pathology of human articular chondrocytes and may be used for autologous transplantation of chondrocytes to treat articular cartilage defects.

Modified Hassab procedure in the management of bleeding esophageal varices--a two-year experience.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Esophageal varices are one of the most common complications (varices, ascites, hypersplenism and encephalopathy) of portal hypertension. Endoscopic sclerotherapy or band ligation is the first choice for esophageal varices today. However, immediate surgical intervention is always needed whenever endoscopic therapy fails to control acute bleeding. Therefore, a simple, effective and less time-consuming procedure is worthwhile for patients who needed immediate surgical treatment. METHODOLOGY: A modified gastroesophageal decongestion and splenectomy GEDS (Hassab) was performed on patients who need immediate surgical intervention for variceal bleeding. There were 15 consecutive patients who received this operative method and the outcome of all patients were reviewed. RESULTS: During follow-up, esophageal varices were resolved in 8 patients (62%), diminished in size in 3 patients (23%) and remain unchanged in 2 patients (15%). Gastric varices disappeared in all patients. The rebleeding rate was 23% in our studies. Encephalopathy was not found in all patients. Moreover, no surgical mortality was found by using this surgical method. CONCLUSIONS: In this study the modified gastroesophageal decongestion and splenectomy (Hassab) was an effective life-saving procedure for its safe, simple and less time-consuming advantages. No esophageal transection was performed in this procedure; therefore esophageal fistula, which had high mortality, did not occur. We believe that our procedure may perhaps be an alternative choice for patients who need immediate surgical intervention for bleeding varices.