Lowered antioxidant enzymes in spontaneously transformed embryonic mouse liver cells in culture.

Normal embryonal mouse liver cells in culture were shown to undergo spontaneous transformation during prolonged subculture. The spontaneously transformed cells lost their anchorage dependence, as measured by a soft agar assay, and gave rise to tumors in nude mice. Accompanying this transformation, the antioxidant enzymes, copper- and zinc-containing superoxide dismutase (CuZnSOD), manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD), catalase (CAT) and glutathione reductase, decreased significantly in activity; the decline in enzymatic activity of CuZnSOD, MnSOD and CAT was due to a decline in the levels of immunoreactive protein. These spontaneously transformed high passage in vitro liver cells appeared similar in morphology, antioxidant enzyme activity and tumorigenicity to their counterparts transformed by N-methyl-N-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine and Simian virus 40. These data provide experimental evidence that changes in antioxidant enzymes are associated with spontaneous in vitro cellular transformation of mouse embryonal liver cells.