T98G: an anchorage-independent human tumor cell line that exhibits stationary phase G1 arrest in vitro.

T98 and T98G are two related cell lines that were derived from a human glioblastoma multiforma tumor. T98G has almost twice as many chromosomes as T98, suggesting that it is a polyploid variant of T98. Three aspects of control of cellular proliferation were studied in T98 and T98G cells in comparison to WI-38 normal human diploid cells. WI-38 cells have the following properties: (1) they can undergo only a limited number of population doublings in vitro; (2) they cannot proliferate without anchorage; and (3) they become arrested in G1 phase under stationary phase conditions. T98 cells differ from normal cells in all three of these properties, as do many other transformed cell lines. However, the derivative of T98, namely T98G, expresses an unique combination of normal and transformed aspects of the control of cellular proliferation. T98G cells are like normal cells in that they become arrested in G1 phase under stationary phase conditions, yet they also exhibit the transformed characteristics of anchorage independence and immortality. Thus, T98G cells demonstrate that transformation to immortality and anchorage independence can exist without concomitant loss of the normal mechanism for G1 arrest in response to stationary phase conditions. This result supports the hypothesis that each of these three aspects of control of cellular proliferation can be altered independently. Partially transformed cell lines, such as T98G, should be useful for sorting out the biochemical changes associated with transformation in each of these aspects.