In vitro studies on human cervical epithelium, benign and neoplastic.

The early neoplastic lesions of the cervix offer an excellent model to study the neoplastic process in the human; In vitro studies indicate that these lesions are intermediate between normal epithelium and invasive carcinoma in many aspects. More recent studies show that the in vitro cells retain many of the characteristics of their in vivo counterparts. The techniques are available for short-term culture of normal and CIN cells, but no cell lines have been established. Spontaneous transformation of normal cervical epithelial cells in culture has been rare, but planned transformation with chemical carcinogens and HSV-2 has not been successful. Even though much preliminary work has been done, the establishment of a cell line from the human cervix and methods for transforming normal cell in vitro are needed. Studies toward these objectives are continuing in this laboratory.