Evening star., 1953-10-16
Scientists at Bethesda
Study Cell Mutations
Experiments Moy Have
Fur-Reuching importance
By Thomos r. Henry

The pure cultures in bottles of animal
and human cells now being produced
for the first time by DR.. w. r. Earle
and his associates at the National Cam
Ger Institute at Bethesda are essentially
little swarms of free-living one-celled
animals-like the microscopic protozoa.
They are skin animals, liver animals.
connective tissue animals. There is
nothing to organize them into liver, or
skin or connective tissue as it exists in
multi-cellular creatures. Each, after
time, splits in two. Each half is a new
animal and goes its own way.
The basic problem of keeping them
alive indefinitely is that of giving them
enough of the proper nutrients in the
proper environments. In actual prac-
tice, of course, this becomes extremely
complicated. Provided all requirements
are met they should continue as liver
or skin cells forever
This, however, doesn't always happen.
Some undergo mutations, just as
similar cells do in the body. Their fire.
quency of fission increases. They
quickly crowd out the brother-SiSter
cells which remain normal. They are
no longer, for instance. mouse liver
cells although superficially quite SINH
lar. They have become predatory liver
cancer cells. Still they exist as swarmS
of apparently free-living animals.
Six Malignant.
Six Of DR.. Earle's cultures have be-
come malignant in this way. The
shortest period in which the mutation
took place was 10 months, the longest
three years. All these changes have
taken place in mouse cultures. Nobody
knows what causes the mutations, any
more than anybody knows what causes
similar mutations in human organs.
The fact that such events take place,
however, may be of far-reaching inn
portance, DR.. Earle says. Practically
it should be possible to maintain in
two bottles side by side a culture of
normal cells and a culture of precisely
the same kind Of cells which have
mutated to malignancy. With further
understanding perhaps they can be in
duc6d to mutate.
Then the effects Of different drugs.
changes of nutrient and many other
factors on each colony can be studied.
In sense the Bethesda doctors are at
the extreme frontier of cancer.
Behavior of these cultures of single
cells has a philosophical implication
which may be even more important.
There is no sex among them. Each
new individual is half of previous in
dividual, not mixture of two. Heredity
plays no part. Each should be an exact
duplicate of it's twin, and of every other
member of the colony.
False Assumption.
This always has been assumed to be
the actual state of affairs and the as
sumption was safe enough when cells
were studied in a mass. But, when
seen as conglomeration, it turns out
to be untrue. There are big cells and
little cells, round cells and square cells.
They differ among themselves about as
much as do the inhabitants of a large
city. Yet they are all liver or skin
cells and all descendants of sone indi-
vidual with no opportunity for mix
ing of germ plasms.
Nature apparently has made a pro-
vision for diversity of individuals at
the very threshold of life. The popu-
lation of one of DR.. Earle'S colonies
probably will average about 80 million
individuals. The diversity is about as
great as it would be among 30 million
humans gathered at random. All the
humans, DR.. Earle points out, presum-
ably had common ancestor or pair of
ancestors some time in the vast depths
of history.
The independently living liver cells
not only don't look like liver cells which
are actually conglomerated into q uollsa
liver. Some times they do not respond
IN the same way as cells in the body
to various chemical tests.