Alley M C, Lieber M M
Br J Cancer. 1985 Aug;52(2):205-14. doi: 10.1038/bjc.1985.179.
Growth in soft-agar bilayer cultures of human tumour cells derived from 4 in vitro continuous cell lines, from 21 xenografts carried in athymic mice, and from 197 samples of fresh human solid tumours of various histologic types was analyzed by computer-assisted image analysis. Replicate cultures for each specimen were assessed on successive days of incubation for the number and volume of growth units within multiple size categories. Our results confirm the recent finding of others that there is an upper limit of approximately 10(9) microns 3 to the cumulative growth unit volume obtainable in a 2 ml bilayer soft agar culture system. Since this upper limit to the carrying capacity of the closed culture system exists, the extent of growth within the cultures is determined in a fundamental way by the cumulative volume of growth units initially inoculated into cultures. A growth index of greater than or equal to 16-fold was only seen when initial cumulative growth unit volume was less than 10(7) microns 3 per culture dish. Computer-assisted volume analysis (CAVA) appears to be a useful quantitative method to study the growth of human tumour cells in soft agar cultures.
通过计算机辅助图像分析，对源自4种体外连续细胞系、21个无胸腺小鼠异种移植瘤以及197个不同组织学类型的新鲜人类实体瘤样本的人肿瘤细胞软琼脂双层培养物的生长情况进行了分析。在连续培养的日子里，对每个样本的重复培养物进行评估，以确定多个大小类别的生长单位数量和体积。我们的结果证实了其他人最近的发现，即在2 ml双层软琼脂培养系统中，可获得的累积生长单位体积存在约10⁹立方微米的上限。由于封闭培养系统的承载能力存在这个上限，培养物中的生长程度从根本上由最初接种到培养物中的生长单位的累积体积决定。仅当每个培养皿的初始累积生长单位体积小于10⁷立方微米时，才会出现大于或等于16倍的生长指数。计算机辅助体积分析（CAVA）似乎是研究软琼脂培养中人肿瘤细胞生长的一种有用的定量方法。
