Cytogenetic profile of in vitro spontaneously transformed and chemical tumor-derived cell lines related to the mouse lung alveologenic carcinoma.

The karyotypes for a unique series of cloned untransformed and spontaneously and urethan-transformed mouse lung alveologenic carcinoma cell lines were compared by G-banding. All cell lines exhibited altered chromosome number accompanied by chromosomal aberrations. Both spontaneously and chemically transformed lines contained a higher proportion of cells carrying double minutes, short-arm chromosomes with no distinct banding pattern, and Robertsonian translocations between a variety of chromosomes. No common karyotypic abnormalities were observed among any of the transformed lines. These data suggest that enhanced genomic instability may lead to a critical subchromosomal molecular event(s) in generation of both spontaneously and chemically derived mouse lung alveologenic carcinoma.