Differences between the Electrical Charge carried by Normal and Homologous Tumour Cells

Abstract

DIFFERENCES between the behaviour of normal fibroblasts and sarcoma cells have been observed in tissue culture by Abercrombie and Heaysman¹. Normal fibroblasts affect each other's movements by contact inhibition, whereas sarcoma cells do not show inhibition either with respect to each other or to normal fibroblasts. Time-lapse colour films taken with the interference microscope (shown at the Bristol meeting (1955) of the British Association by E. J. Ambrose and M. Abercrombie) have shown that this difference in behaviour is due to differences in the mechanism of contact formation in the two cases, being dependent upon a loss of adhesiveness of the cell surface of the tumour cells. This reduction in the adhesiveness of the tumour cell suggests that the electrical properties of the surface may have altered during the malignant transformation. These properties may be investigated by electrophoretic measurements of cellular mobility. For example, studies of bacteria during growth, in the presence of bacteriostatic agents, have revealed marked changes in the nature of the cell surface, changes which are passed on to the progeny during subsequent growth, either in the presence or the absence of the drug. Thus the growth of Aerobacter aerogenes in the presence of proflavine² or crystal violet³ gives rise to new populations of cells, which, although biologically indistinguishable from the original strain, have a distinctive electrometric behaviour.