Interactions of Lung Cancer Cells with Human Mesothelial Cell Monolayers: a Model for Cancer Invasion

The authors developed an in vitro invasion model using tumor cells of small cell lung carcinoma (OC-10 cells) and cultured layers of human pleura-derived cells. The pleuraderived cells were isolated from normal human pleura obtained by autopsy and cultured in RPMI 1640 with 10% fetal calf serum. The cultured mesothelial cells, polygonal in shape, formed a pavement. When OC-10 cells were seeded on the pleura-derived cell layers, tumor cells attached to mesothelial cells, and invaded underneath mesothelial cell layers and formed flattened tumor cell islands. By counting the number of invaded tumor cells, the in vitro invasive capacity of tumor cells was assayed. These results indicate that the system described in the study might provide a useful model to study tumor cell invasion.