Establishment of a new lung sarcoma cell line from a human lung carcinosarcoma

A cell-line (UACC 2561), was established from a biopsy specimen of a lung carcinosarcoma. The patient had Stage III non-small cell lung cancer. Characterization of this cell line revealed highly anueploid cells containing multiple clonal chromosome alterations with growth in nude mice within 3 weeks following subcutaneous injection. The cell line UACC 2561 stained positive for vimentin and displayed resistance to a variety of chemotherapeutic agents. Polymerase chain reaction followed by single-strand conformational polymorphism analysis revealed the presence of a K-ras 12 codon mutation. This mutation was confirmed by mutation specific PCR analysis for mutant K-ras alleles and direct DNA sequencing to be a GGT to GTT at codon 12 of the K-ras gene. Examination by PCR-SSCP for p53 mutations did not reveal any point mutations in exon 5-8 of the p53 gene. This relatively rare cell line may represent a useful model to investigate human lung sarcomas.