Establishment of new mouse and human pigmented melanoma lines in tissue culture.

Few stably pigmented melanomas have been established as permanent lines in tissue culture, particularly from human sources. The availability of stably pigmented lines is a prerequisite for somatic cell hybridization studies to investigate the genetic control of pigment synthesis. Studies on the biochemistry of dopa oxidase would also be facilitated by the existence of additional permanent melanoma lines to provide a source of enzyme. Thus, it was decided to attempt to establish in tissue culture new melanomas from both human and murine sources.