Growth of Eμ-myc transgenic B-lymphoic cells in vitro and their evolution towards autonomy

Abstract

Constitutive expression of the c-myc oncogene in the B lymphoid cells of Eμ-myc transgenic mice promotes cellular proliferation and predisposes to lymphomagenesis. To delineate further how the pre-B cells of prelymphomatous mice have been altered, we have investigated their growth in vitro. They were not autonomous, since they died rapidly when cultured without feeder cells. When cultured on bone marrow stromal cells, Eμ-myc cells initially grew to only slightly higher densities than B lineage cells from normal mice, but were larger and showed more cell cycle activity. After 14 weeks, all cultures appeared oligo- or monoclonal, as judged by analysis of Ig gene rearrangements. While the growt..