Transplantation of human renal cell carcinoma to the nude mice: as an intermediate of in vivo and in vitro studies.

Five human renal cell carcinomas were transplanted successfully to nude mice fed and grown under a specific pathogen-free condition. The histology of the transplanted tumor tissue was a close reproduction of the original human cancer tissue in situ. The transplanted tumor tissue possessed an abundant supply of blood vessels, which was considered to be of host animal origin. All transplanted tumor cells grew easily when transferred to an in vitro cell culture system from the nude mice. In this latter cell culture system tumor cells demonstrated a growth pattern characteristic of epithelial cells. The electron microscopy of these cells showed some characteristic morphological features that indicated their cytological origin.