Cell Culture in Vivo

In vivo cell culture has been known for several years. The earliest attempts were made by Rezzesi (18) and Bisceglie (6). These investigators reported that Ehrlich carcinoma of mice survived for 12 days in the peritoneal cavity of guinea pigs when cultured in collodion dialysis sacs. More recently Prehn, Weaver, and Algire (16, 17) introduced the diffusion chamber technic using Millipore Filters for the porous membranes of the chamber. These diffusion chambers separate the cell culture from host cells but provide free diffusion of all nutrient materials, including protein, needed for growth. In such a system the cells in culture should be subject to all the noncellular growth-controlling influences of the host. Since 1954 many reports have appeared on the use of these technics to culture cells in vivo (1-5, 12, 15, 21, 2s The methods used by these investigators (except [5]),: although useful, did not permit quantitative measurement of cell growth; growth was demonstrated by the presence of mitotic indices in stained preparations and by gross appearance. In general, the inoculum sizes were large (perhaps exceeding the capacity of the chamber to support growth) or consisted of small bits of tissue containing unknown numbers of cells. This report is intended to present methods for quantitative measurement of cell growth in vivo and to demonstrate the type of growth curves obtained by such a method. The cell lines chosen for the initial experiments were the L-fibroblast (originally derived from normal connective tissue of the CSH mouse) and the Sarcoma 180, a malignant cell line of mesodermal origin.