Karyotype instability and altered differentiation of rat sarcoma cells after retroviral infection

The karyotypic and phenotypic stability of cultured rat fibrosarcoma cells was challenged by infection with Moloney murine sarcoma virus (MoMuSV). After transformation, the spindle‐like morphology of the parental HH‐16 cl.2/1 cells had altered to a rounded phenotype, which was maintained in tumors produced by inoculating transformed cells into congenic animals. In contrast to the parental cells, transformed cells lacked cables of cytokeratins 14–16 and 19 and showed reduction of the mesenchymal marker protein vimentin. Additionally, the morphologically altered cell clones tf‐1 to tf‐3 had lost growth arrest in the presence of dexamethasone. The DNA of the transformed cells contained between four and six randomly integrated proviral copies. Karyotypic alterations were manifested by reduction of morphologically intact chromosomes in the MoMuSV‐transformed cells together with increase of structural aberrations. Three additional markers were identified in the virus‐transformed cell clones. Karyotypic instability induced by MoMuSV infection appeared closely related to reduction of the cellular differentiation status, although only cells of clone tf‐1 had increased metastatic potential.