MCF-7 morphology - (Aug/08/2007 )

Hi,

I've been culturing MCF-7 cells and I'm not convinced that they are indeed MCF-7 cells. According to ATCC MCF-7 cells cluster quite a bit & form domes. My cells have never done that. When I initially started culturing them they had a very strong epithelial phenotype but didnt form clusters or domes. The doubling time was a bit slow so we altered the media from DMEM with 10% FCS to DMEM with 10% FCS and 2mM Glutamine. The doubling time has increased from about 4days to 2 but the morphology seems to have changed. The cells are more stretched out looking and have less cell-cell contacts (they look quite similar to MDA-MB-231 cells). Sorry for the lack of photo's I know they would make it easier to understand what i'm saying. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Moorele

May be someone mislabelled the frozen vials... labelled MCF7 as MDA231 and vice vera.