The story of the development of this cell line is an interesting one, and is at the heart of why this cell line designation is so different than that of the other SUM cell lines. Unlike all of the other SUM lines, which were derived from patient material obtained at the University of Michigan Cancer Center, the SUM-1315 cells were derived from a patient who was treated at the National Cancer Institute. One day, I received a phone call from a breast cancer surgeon at the NCI named Dr. Doug Schwartzentruber who told me about one of his patients who had an aggressive primary breast cancer that spread to the contralateral breast, and then began a progress subcutaneous invasion that spread widely and was not well controlled. Because of the recurrent nature of this disease and because it was spreading subcutaneously, Dr. Schwartzentruber was able to biopsy the tumor and transplant pieces of the breast caner into nude mice. The mice developed progressively growing tumors that he could serially transplant. Despite the ability of these breast cancer cells to grow as xenografts in mice, Dr. Schwartzentruber was never able to get the cells to grow in culture. Thus, after our conversation, he agreed to send me several vials of frozen cells from the second transplant generation of this tumor. Hence, we originally named this cell line SUM-1315MO2. The 1315 designation came from Dr. Schwartzentruber and the MO2 indicated the second transplant generation from the mouse.
Upon receiving the tumor pieces into the lab, we performed our standard enzymatic dissociation to obtain cell aggregates and seeded them into culture using what had become standard procedures by then. And, sure enough, the cells did not grow in any of our standard media either. One of the benefits of working with cells from a primary xenograft is that there is plenty of material to work with, and so in our second try, we tested many novel growth factor and supplement combinations, and in so-doing, hit on the very unusual growth factor requirements of this cell line. As a result, we developed the cell line and grow it routinely in a serum-free Ham’s F12 medium supplemented with insulin and EGF, and without hydrocortisone. This hormone/growth factor combination is unusual for two reasons: first, it’s unusual for such aggressive breast cancer cells to require exogenous EGF for their growth, and second, these cells underwent massive apoptosis when hydrocortisone was included in the culture medium. We had never seen that before, nor have we seen that since, and I wish I could say that I understand why these cells have such cell culture requirements. These cells, like the SUM-159 cells exhibit the expression profile of a claudin-low breast cancer.
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