Interrelationship Among Morphology, Metabolism, and Proliferation of Tumor Cells in Monolayer and Spheroid Culture

Previous investigations have indicated a positive correlation between the proliferative and metabolic activities of tumor cells in monolayer culture (Freyer et al., 1984; Freyer and Sutherland, 1985; Walenta and Mueller-Klieser, 1987). On the other hand, no difference in the local oxygen consumption has been found between highly proliferating outer cell areas and non-proliferating inner cellular regions in multicellular tumor spheroids (Mueller-Klieser, 1984, 1987). Therefore, the interrelationship among metabolism, proliferation, and cellular morphology was investigated systematically in tumor cells both in monolayer and spheroid culture.