First of all, since two years ago we mantain Ehrlich ascites carcinoma in our lab. But, from last year up to january, the tumors were not growing up anymore, in the in vivo experiment itself. The maintenance passages were done like this: each 7 days, 1*10^6 cells/mL, 500 microL in each animal.
After this fact, we asked a new cell aliquot from our collaborators, and they told us to do the passages like this: each 5 days, 1*10^6 cells/mL, 200 microL in each animal - and before counting, we "wash" the cells in centrifuge with PBS (1000 RPM, 4oC, 5 min) and dischard supernatant.
This way, we perceived that the animal from control group (in EAC model, not in maintenance passage) are growing too much. Two years ago, the medium tumor volum after our EAC model (4*10^6 cel/mL, 500 microL, i.p., 9 day period) used to be 6 - 8.5 mL, as in most of papers. Nowadays, its 11-14 mL!
The worst is that we use the model to do in vivo trials of substances, and we perceive that substances at first time assayed (one year ago) were super effective (zero, in tumor volum), and now, with present cells (from the same collaborator), aren't anymore. But the standard drug (5-FU, 25 mg/kg) always inhibits the same (in the last year and now).
So, did the cells became resistent?
And, what could it be these abnormal cells that we perceive now appearing in the peritoneal liquid, after Trypan blue staining (pictures below. The ones I call attention are the ones with blue "nucleus"; the others are EAC), that didn´t use to appear? I´m sure they aren´t dead EAC cells, which are different). I searched for Micoplasma, but they should be intracellular...
I apologize for the size, but since last year I´ve been reading a lot of papers, and can´t realize what can be happening. Thank you for the attention.