Isolation and Culture of Prostate Cancer Cell Lines

The ability to establish cell cultures from primary tumors and metastases of prostate cancer in a reliable and consistent manner is a valuable tool for studying the biology of these tumors and evaluating the effectiveness of novel therapies. A procedure to propagate human prostatic epithelial cells in vitro for a limited number of cell generations was developed by others (1 ,2 ) and was extended to prostate cancer cells from primary tumors (1 ,3 ). However, reproducible methods to propagate prostatic cancer cells from more advanced tumors have not been established. This may reflect the fact that prostate cancer cells derived from primary tumors are thought to have nutritional requirements similar to normal prostatic epithelial cells (1 ,3 ), whereas more advanced tumors may have different growth requirements, depending on the specific genetic alterations acquired during disease progression. It is therefore understandable why a single protocol may not result in optimal growth of all cancer cells in vitro (which would open up possibilities for long-term culture), that the establishment of human prostate cancer cell lines is very difficult, and that there are few established cell lines (4 ). During the past five years, we have processed 100 prostate cancer specimens in attempts to determine their optimal growth conditions and to establish long-term cultures, cell lines, and xenografts. We have processed different types of tissue samples (tissue fragments, needle biopsy samples, and fine-needle aspiration biopsy samples) from prostate cancer samples obtained at radical prostatectomy and samples from different metastatic sites (bone, lymph node, liver, skin, adrenal gland, brain, and lung).