Responses of NBT-II Bladder Carcinoma Cells to Conditioned Medium from Normal Fetal Urogenital Sinus

In vitro studies were conducted to determine whether conditioned medium from rat fetal urogenital sinus explants would affect phenotypic characteristics of NBT-II urinary bladder carcinoma cells in culture. NBT-II cells were exposed to medium (30%, v/v) conditioned for 48 h by intact urogenital sinus explants derived from 18-day fetal rats. Upon exposure for 23 h the [³H]thymidine incorporation by NBT-II cells was decreased by 40.3% relative to control cultures. This effect was paralleled by a similar decrease in proliferation. NBT-II cultures decreased in cell number by 32.1 and 45.8% on days 2 and 4, respectively, after exposure to conditioned medium. Although cell proliferation was inhibited, conditioned medium acted to induce an increase in protein secretion. An increase of 18.6% was observed in the incorporation of [^(methionine into newly synthesized, secreted proteins by NBT-II cells exposed to conditioned medium for 23 h. Morphologically the NBT-II cells exposed to conditioned medium were larger, more spread out, and exhibited a greater array of lamellipodia and filopodia, although [³⁵S]methionine incorporation into cellular proteins was decreased by 11.1%. These results suggest that diffusable factors produced by fetal urogenital sinus explants can induce changes in proliferation, protein synthesis, protein secretion, and phenotypic morphology of NBT-II carcinoma cells in culture.