The surface morphology of normal and malignant rat liver epithelial cells in culture

Summary A direct comparison has been made between normal parenchymal cells cultured from rat liver and malignant cells from both a rat liver tumor and a spontaneously transformed line derived from the parent rat culture. In all nondividing cells there was a 3- to 5-fold increase in the population of surface microvilli on the malignant cells compared to the normal cells. Notable variations in overall morphology were also observed when cells were incubated in arginine-deficient medium. During the course of this work T. D. Allen and P. T. Iype were supported by grants from the Medical Research Council and Cancer Research Campaign, and M. J. Murphy, Jr. was supported by a Special Fellowship of the Leukemia Society of America, Inc. and the Jean Shaland Fund.