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Cultivation and Characterization of Cells from a Malignant Lymphoma in an African Child^*

Jørgen Fogh, H. Clarke Anderson, Bruce Allen, Gudmundur Petursson, Edgar L. Saunders and Gilbert Dalldorf

( Division of Experimental Pathology, Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research and Sloan-Kettering Division, Cornell University Medical College, New York, New York)

In the course of studies of factors responsible for the malignant lymphoma of children in Africa, cells derived from a maxillary tumor of an 8-year-old male patient in Kenya have been serially cultured in this laboratory. Fragments, prepared from tumor tissue, became attached to the glass, and cellular outgrowth was observed after 9 days of incubation. After 15 months of serial passage morphologic features remained similar to those of the early passages. The major part of the dividing cells were diploid, although great variation of diameters of interphase nuclei suggested the presence of cells with higher chromosome numbers. Attempts to produce tumors in newborn hamsters and in human cancer patients have failed. In one female patient, after subcutaneous inoculation of the cultured cells, a nodule developed, but sections failed to reveal tumor cells. General cytological properties of the cells cultivated from the lymphoma include considerable cytoplasmic motility and an apparent capacity to phagocytize, observed in time-lapse movie studies; lysosomes were frequently observed by electron microscopy.

The cultivated cells resembled certain histiocytes which are characteristically present in this type of lymphoma; they contained periodic acid-Schiff-positive intracytoplasmic granules and were positive for acid phosphatase and for nonspecific esterase. Conversely, the predominating tumor cells in the malignant lymphoma resembled lymphoblasts and showed none of the above features.

The results strongly suggest that the cultivated cells have arisen from histiocytes ("waterpot cells") in the tumor, rather than from the predominating lymphoblasts. Although obscure, the role of the histiocytic cells may be important.

^* Presented in part at the May, 1963, meeting of the Tissue Culture Association, Boston, Massachusetts. Supported by a grant from the National Cancer Institute.

Pathology trainee, United States Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health. Present address: Department of Pathology, State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York.

Received 9/ 3/63.