Establishment and characterization of gastric surface mucous cell lines (GSM06 and GSM10) from transgenic mice harboring temperature-sensitive simian virus 40 large T-antigen gene

In the present study, in order to make an in vitro model of gastric mucosa for physiological and pharmacological studies, we established two immortalized gastric surface mucous cell lines (GSM06 and GSM10), which produce periodic acid-Schiff (PAS)-and concanavalin A (Con A)-positive glycoproteins, from a primary culture of gastric fundic mucosal cells of adult transgenic mice harboring a temperature-sensitive simian virus 40 large T-antigen gene 〔1]. Gastric fundic mucosal cells were isolated as a modification of a previously described method for rats by Schepp et al. (2). The isolated gastric fundic mucosal cells were cultured in DME/F12 medium supplemented with 2% fetal bovine serum (FBS), 1% ITES (consisting of 2 mg/1 insulin, 2 mgg/1 transferrin, 0.122 mg/1 ethanolamine and 0.00914 mg/1 sodium selenite) and 10 ng/ml recombinant epidermal growth factor (EGF) in a collagen-coated culture dish. To remove fibroblastic cells from the culture, gastric mucosal cells were incubated in the culture medium containing dispase (25 U/ml) for 24 h. The cells, uncontaminated with fibroblastic cells, were then cloned by colony formation. In our series of three attempts, two cell lines (GSM06 and GSM10) have been established at last. The cells proliferated, attached to the dish ana grew until confluent monolayers were formed, and maintained tight contact with neighboring cells. Both GSM06 and GSM10 cells have now been in culture for more than 9 months with regular passaging. The either cell produced