New human renal carcinoma cell line established from a patient with erythrocytosis.

A continuous human renal carcinoma cell line (GKA) has been established from a patient with the paraneoplastic syndrome of erythrocytosis. The cells are epithelioid and anchorage dependent and have a doubling time in vitro of 48 to 72 hr. They exhibit a modal karyotype of 45,XX with abnormalities in chromosomes 3 and 9 and an absent chromosome 17 as determined by quinacrine mustard staining. Line GKA secretes erythropoietin activity into its growth medium, consistent with the biology of the tumor in vivo. This unique cell line will permit an investigation of the cellular physiology of this carcinoma and should result in clonal sublines with high erythropoietin-secretory activities.