Transfection of metastatic capability with total genomic DNA from human and mouse metastatic tumour cell lines.

From a large series of experiments involving transfer of high molecular weight total genomic DNA from highly metastatic human and mouse tumour cell lines to other mouse tumour cell lines we have derived a few cell lines with greatly augmented metastatic properties. In one of these experiments the transfected cell line (designated AH8 Test) not only colonised the lungs but also formed secondary tumour colonies in several extrapulmonary sites including the skin, skeletal muscles, bone, liver diaphragm, spleen and heart. There were no qualitative and quantitative effects of this magnitude when we used DNA from several non-metastatic or non-tumourigenic sources. Secondary transfection of metastatic capability with DNA obtained from a metastasis formed by one of the primary transfectant lines (AH8 Test) has also been accomplished. Concomitant transfer of human DNA through both transfection cycles in this experiment was confirmed by a variety of methods including Southern blot analysis, in situ hybridisation and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of DNA using primers recognising human-specific Alu repeat sequences. The findings offer opportunities for the isolation of sequences programming metastatic behaviour and we have cloned and sequenced a fragment of human DNA, which has not been previously characterised, from the transfected cells.