Carcinogenesis in tissue culture 27: heterotransplantation as an alternative in vivo assay for neoplastic state of cells in culture.

Cells of serially cultured strains and newly-isolated cells originating from rat liver and lung were heterotransplanted into pouches of golden hamsters treated with antithymocyte serum (ATS). The "take" was determined by histopathological examination of nodules formed by 3 weeks after the transplantation. The results obtained under this criteria showed that 9 of 11 cell strains backtransplantable to rats and 2 of 4 strains untransplantable were in parallel with those in rats. Three kinds of uncultured liver cells resulted in "no take".