A model for tumorigenicity and metastatic potential: growth in 1.0% agar cultures.

We developed a method to determine the amount of work performed by cells through cell division in 1.0% agar cultures. There was no correlation between the cloning efficiencies of 1.0 and 0.3% agar cultures. Growth in 1.0% agar cultures correlated well with such malignant properties as tumorigenicity and the invasive and metastatic potentials. Our method revealed that metastatic MC and F cell lines possess different means of taking advantage of energy to proliferate against an environmental pressure from those possessed by nontumorigenic (ME and T-C3H) cell strain/line or nonmetastatic but tumorigenic (L,MR, and magc1) cell lines.