Abstract
Although a tumor cell can be distinguished from its normal counterpart by a wide range of phenotypic alterations, only a few of these properties provide useful indicators of malignant transformation. These include changes in cellular morphology, decreased dependence on serum growth factors, loss of density-dependent growth inhibition, reduction of gap-junctional intercellular communication (GJIC), the ability to proliferate in the absence of anchorage to a solid support and the ability to form tumors when injected into the appropriate animal host. These components of the SV40-transformed phenotype, shared with phenotypes of cells transformed by many other oncogenes, constitute the basis for the majority of currently used assays. In certain systems, such as polyoma virus-transformed rat F111 cells, a hierarchy of transformation properties was observed, with morphological changes, focus formation, loss of GJIC, anchorage-independent growth, and tumorigenicity requiring progressively higher levels of oncogene expression (1,2), although this is not the case in all systems (3,4).
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© 2001 Humana Press Inc., Totowa, NJ
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Raptis, L., Vultur, A. (2001). Neoplastic Transformation Assays. In: Raptis, L. (eds) SV40 Protocols. Methods in Molecular Biology™, vol 165. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1385/1-59259-117-5:151
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1385/1-59259-117-5:151
Publisher Name: Humana Press
Print ISBN: 978-0-89603-653-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-59259-117-6
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