Establishment and molecular characterization of HCB-541, a novel and aggressive human cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma cell line

This study aims to establish and characterize a new metastatic cSCC cell line derived from a Brazilian patient. A tumor biopsy was taken from a metastatic cSCC patient, immortalized, and named HCB-541 after several passages. The cytokeratin expression profile, karyotypic alterations, mutational analysis, mRNA and protein differential expression, tumorigenic capacity in xenograft models, and drug sensitivity were analyzed. The HCB-541 cell line showed a doubling time between 20 and 30  h and high tumorigenic capacity in the xenograft mouse model. The HCB-541 cell line showed hypodiploid and hypotetraploidy populations. We found pathogenic mutations inTP53 p.(Arg248Leu),HRAS (Gln61His) andTERT promoter (C228T) and high-level microsatellite instability (MSI-H) in both tumor and cell line. We observed 37 cancer-related genes differentially expressed when compared with HACAT control cells. The HCB-541 cells exhibited high phosphorylated levels of EGFR, AXL, Tie, FGFR, and ROR2, and high sensitivity to cisplatin, carboplatin, and EGFR inhibitors. Our study successfully established HCB-541, a new cSCC cell line that could be useful as a valuable biological model for understanding the biology and therapy of metastatic skin cancer.
Source: Human Cell - Category: Cytology Source Type: research