Establishment of cell clones with different metastatic potential from the metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma cell line MHCC97

Table 1 Lung metastases of 10 clones

Clone number	n Tumor implanted	n Lung metastases after 5 wk
1, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13	6	6
4	6	5
6, 24	6	4
25	6	2
MHCC97	6	6

NOTE. Each clone was first sc inoculated into nude mice. Then small pieces of subcutaneous tumor were implanted into the liver of 6 nude mice for every clone. The number of mice with lung metastases was determined by histopathology 5 wk after orthotopic tumor implantation (see the in vivo screening for detail.).

Table 2 Abdominal events and pulmonary metastases after liver implantation of subcutaneous tumor tissue

	Clone number
	No. 8 (MHCC97-H)	No. 25 (HMCC97-L)
No of mice with tumor implantation	10	10
Tumor size by d 35/cm	1.42 ± 0.11	0.90 ± 0.26a
Abdominal events
Abdominal wall invasion	40% (4/10)	20% (2/10)
Bloody ascites	10% (1/10)	0% (0/10)
Intrahepatic metastases	80% (8/10)	0% (0/10)
Diaphragm invasion	10% (1/10)	0% (0/10)
Hepato-splenic/hepato-gastric	10% (1/10)	0% (0/10)
ligament invasion
Loco-regional lymph node	0% (0/10)	0% (0/10)
enlargement
Pulmonary metastases	100% (10/10)	40% (4/10)b

NOTE.

^aP ＜ 0.01, t test. The length (L), width (W) and height (H) of liver tumor was measured at autopsy using a caliper, and the tumor size was expressed as the geometric mean diameter (GMD) GMD = (L × W × H) 1/3;

^bP ＜ 0.05 Fisher’s exact test.