Differentiation of mouse plasmocytomas in vitro: two phenotypically stabilized variants of the same cell.

Mouse myelomas from Balb/c and C3H mice were established in tissue culture for more than 200 passages. When allowed to attach to a surface, they differentiated into two stabilized forms, one of which was fibroblast-shaped, grew without contact inhibition, and could be transplanted back to mice. The other had the morphology of epithelial cells, showed contact inhibition, and was not transplantable back to mice. For one strain (MOPC 173) it was demonstrated that both types of cells synthesize molecules with idiotypic determinants of the original myeloma protein. The relationship between the host cells and a leukemia-type virus present in the original tumor cells has been studied during different stages of cellular differentiation.