Karyotypic variations in human meningioma cell cultures under different in vitro conditions.

Examined were how changes of the culture medium, cultivating procedure and cultivating time will influence numerical representation of different karyotypes in a total of 27 cell cultures of meningiomas with two or more cytogenetically distinguishable cell lines. It could be shown that in medium I (80% Mc Coy 5 A, 20% fetal calf serum) more cell lines with a higher degree of hypodipoidy occurred than in medium II (50% TC 199, 40% bovine amniotic fluid, 10% calf serum). The number of cells with normal karyotype was higher in cultures which were grown from trypsinized biopsy material in stationary flasks when compared to particle cultures in roller tubes. Cells with a normal karyotype also increased after 1--6 subcultures. By demonstration of SV 40 tumor antigen it could be shown in two cultures that these normal mitoses derived from tumoral and not from stromal tissue.