Figure 3.

Primary HNSCC cell cultures in PNEU-medium. (A) Initial cultures in passage 0 (P0) and critical events observed in later passages: adherent S18 cells spontaneously transitioned into spheroids in passage 4; epithelial S22 cells expanded until passage 6 and then showed signs of reduced viability and were overgrown by fibroblast-like cells; epithelial cells derived from S23 expanded initially, but in passage 1 these cells exhibited death accompanied by proliferation of fibroblast-like cells; S24-derived cultures contained epithelial cells that expanded continuously until the experiment was terminated in passage 6; S25 cells with epithelial morphology expanded continuously until the experiment was terminated in passage 3; scale bars = 100 µm. (B) Growth curves of primary HNSCC cell cultures reveal varying proliferation rates; AD = adherent; SPH = spheroid.