Cell fusion in tumor progression: the isolation of cell fusion products by physical methods.

Background: Cell fusion induced by polyethylene glycol (PEG) is an efficient but poorly controlled procedure for obtaining somatic cell hybrids used in gene mapping, monoclonal antibody production, and tumour immunotherapy. Genetic selection techniques and fluorescent cell sorting are usually employed to isolate cell fusion products, but both procedures have several drawbacks.

Results: Here we describe a simple improvement in PEG-mediated cell fusion that was obtained by modifying the standard single-step procedure.