"Sternberg-reed" giant cells of Hodgkin's Disease: cultivation in vitro, heterotransplantation, and characterization as neoplastic macrophages

Abstract

Cells from the involved spleens of 25 patients with Hodgkin's disease have been grown in long-term culture and compared with normal spleen macrophage cultures from control cases. The Hodgkin's spleen cell culture contained mono-, bi-, and multi-nucleate giant cells, many closely resembling Sternberg-Reed cells, which were adherent, phagocytically active and neoplastic by the dual criteria of aneuploidy and heterotransplantability. Lysozyme secretion was consistently observed in all Hodgkin's cultures tested. The giant cells possessed both Fc and complement (c3b) receptors, and lacked lymphocyte markers such as (c3b) receptors, surface IgM, and the capacity to form E-rosettes. Binucleate and multinucleate cells, as well as mononuclears, were capable of active DNA synthesis, and binuclear mitotic figures were observed. It is concluded that these cells are the in vitro descendants of the Sternberg-Reed and Hodgkin neoplastic cell population, and that they are derived from macrophages or closely related cells of the mononuclear phagocyte system.