In vitro culture of the Krebs ascites carcinoma and the Ehrlich ascites carcinoma of mice.

Several attempts in this laboratory in the last @ or 3 years to culture the Knebs-@ ascites carcinoma of mice had failed. The maximum survival time of the cells in culture was about 10 days. The media used always contained chicken embryo ex tract (CEE). Later, during efforts to develop a culture medium and technic by which single cell cultures could readily be initiated for single-cell irradiation experiments, it was observed that CEE was toxic for mouse embryo skin cells in that it caused death of the cells when small numbers were in culture. Other workers (1, 6, 9, 10), with one exception, who used CEE in their culture medium were un able to establish and maintain, except for short periods, cultures of the cells of either the Krebs ascites carcinoma or of the Ehrlich ascites car cinoma of mice. Hull (6) maintained a culture of the Krebs ascites carcinoma cells for 8 months and then lost the culture. There is no report that he succeeded in establishing additional cultures of those cells. Graff and McCarty, using a medium without CEE (4), obtained good growth of the Ehrlich ascites carcinoma cells in a cytogenerator for 15 days. The present investigations have shown that CEE is toxic for the cells in culture of both the Krebs ascites carcinoma and the Ehrlich ascites carcinoma.