The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, Vol 73, Issue 5 647-658, Copyright © 1991 by Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, Inc
Synthesis of chondrocytic keratan sulphate-containing proteoglycans by human chondrosarcoma cells in long-term cell culture
JA Block, SE Inerot, S Gitelis and JH Kimura
Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois 60612.
Keratan sulphate is an integral component of the large aggregating
proteoglycans of mature human articular cartilage. The keratan sulphate
content of chondrocytic proteoglycans increases during maturation, and it
is a useful marker of mature-type chondrocytic proteoglycans. Ordinarily,
in cell culture, chondrocytes from non-neoplastic tissues dedifferentiate,
diminish or cease to synthesize aggregating proteoglycans with the same
amount of keratan sulphate as those formed in vivo, and do not maintain
their in vivo phenotype. In tissue culture, this down-regulation of
synthesis of keratan sulphate is irreversible. The study of the metabolism
of mature human chondrocytes has been hampered by the absence of stable
models. We report a cell-line, 105KC, derived from a human chondrosarcoma,
that has maintained a stable proteoglycan phenotype during more than three
years of culture. Analysis with immunofluorescence suggested that 105KC
cells continued to synthesize keratan sulphate in long-term culture.
Biochemical analysis demonstrated that 105KC cells maintained the
production of chondrocytic large-aggregating proteoglycans and that keratan
sulphate composed 13 per cent of their glycosaminoglycan content. To our
knowledge, 105KC represents the first model to have maintained the
post-fetal chondrocytic proteoglycan phenotype in stable culture. This
study documents the feasibility of the development of mature chondrocytic
cell-lines and sheds light on the biological characteristics of
chondrosarcomas.
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