Evidence for the clonal origin of spontaneous metastases.

A cultured cell line of the K-1735 melanoma was x-irradiated to induce chromosome breakage and rearrangements and then was implanted into the footpads of syngenic C3H mice. Spontaneous lung metastases were isolated from different animals, established in culture as individual lines, and then karyotyped. Within certain metastases, the same chromosomal abnormality (or abnormalities) (recombinant chromosomes) was found in all the cells examined. Most metastases differed from one another in that they exhibited characteristic combinations of chromosomal markers. These findings indicated that the metastases were clonal and that they probably originated from different progenitor cells.