Establishment and characterization of a new human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line, HAK-3, and its response to growth factors.

A new human hepatocellular (HCC) cell line, HAK-3, was established from a resected HCC of a Japanese, female patient. HAK-3 retains morphologic features of the original HCC, and proliferates in a monolayered sheet (doubling time: 26 h). HAK-3 is a single aneuploid cell population with a DNA index of 2.42, the karyotype is human, chromosomes are 80-85 (mode: 83), and secretes fibronectin and tissue polypeptide antigen. Epidermal growth factor (EGF) and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) dose-dependently accelerated the cell proliferation, while deletion-type hepatocyte growth factor (dHGF) tended to suppress the proliferation, and transforming growth factor (TGF)-alpha showed almost no influence. dHGF induced the decrease of cell adhesiveness, changed the cell morphology to spindle-shaped cells, increased cell movement, and showed chemotactic effects with the increase of its concentration gradient in cultures. HAK-3 would be useful in studies on the acceleration mechanisms of cancer cell proliferation by growth factors and of chemotaxis by dHGF.