Establishment & characterization of lymphoblastoid cell lines from patients with multiple primary neoplasms in the upper aero-digestive tract & healthy individuals

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES: A major drawback for genetic studies as well as long-term genotype-phenotype correlation studies in cancer is lack of representative human cell lines providing a continuous source of basic biomolecules and a system to carry out various experimental investigations. This can be overcome to some extent by establishing lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) by infecting peripheral blood lymphocytes with Epstein Barr virus (EBV) which is known to immortalize human resting B cells in vitro giving rise to actively proliferating B-lymphoblastoid cell lines. The present study involves preparation and characterization of LCLs generated from patients with multiple primary neoplasms (MPN) of upper aero-digestive tract (UADT). METHODS: Thirty seven LCLs were established from UADT MPN patients and healthy age, sex and habit matched controls using EBV crude stock. Characterization was done with respect to expression of CD-19 (Pan B-cell marker), CD3 (T cell specific marker), CD56 (NK-cell specific marker), cell morphology, ploidy analysis, genotype and gene expression comparison with the parent lymphocytes. RESULTS: LCLs showed rosette morphology with doubling time of approximately 24 h. Ploidy analysis showed diploid DNA content which was maintained for at least 30 population doublings. When compared with parent lymphocytes there appeared no change at genetic and gene expression level. INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that lymphoblastoid cell lines are a good surrogate of isolated lymphocytes bearing their close resemblance at genetic and phenotypic level to parent lymphocytes and are a valuable resource for understanding genotype-phenotype interactions.