Immortalised cell line
Scanning electron micrograph of anapoptoticHeLa cell. Zeiss Merlin HR-SEM.
HeLa cells, an example of an immortalised cell line. DIC image, DNA stained withHoechst 33258.
Anatomical terminology [edit on Wikidata]

Animmortalised cell line is a population ofcells from amulticellular organism that would normally not proliferate indefinitely but, due tomutation, have evaded normalcellular senescence and instead can keep undergoing division. The cells can therefore be grown for prolonged periodsin vitro. The mutations required for immortality can occur naturally or be intentionally induced for experimental purposes. Immortal cell lines are a very important tool for research into thebiochemistry andcell biology of multicellular organisms. Immortalised cell lines have also found uses inbiotechnology.

An immortalised cell line should not be confused withstem cells, which can also divide indefinitely, but form a normal part of the development of a multicellular organism.

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There are various immortal cell lines. Some of them are normal cell lines (e.g. derived from stem cells). Other immortalised cell lines are thein vitro equivalent ofcancerous cells. Cancer occurs when asomatic cell that normally cannot divide undergoes mutations that cause deregulation of the normalcell cycle controls, leading to uncontrolled proliferation. Immortalised cell lines have undergone similar mutations, allowing a cell type that would normally not be able to divide to be proliferatedin vitro. The origins of some immortal cell lines – for example,HeLa human cells – are from naturally occurring cancers. HeLa, the first immortal human cell line on record to be successfully isolated and proliferated by a laboratory, was taken fromHenrietta Lacks in 1951 atJohns Hopkins Hospital inBaltimore, Maryland.^[1]

Immortalised cell lines are widely used as a simple model for more complex biological systems – for example, for the analysis of thebiochemistry andcell biology ofmammalian (includinghuman) cells.^[2] The main advantage of using an immortal cell line for research is its immortality; the cells can be grown indefinitely in culture. This simplifies analysis of the biology of cells that may otherwise have a limited lifetime.^{[citation needed]}

Immortalised cell lines can also be cloned, giving rise to aclonal population that can, in turn, be propagated indefinitely. This allows an analysis to be repeated many times on genetically identical cells, which is desirable for repeatable scientific experiments. The alternative, performing an analysis on primary cells from multiple tissue donors, does not have this advantage.^{[citation needed]}

Immortalised cell lines find use in biotechnology, where they are a cost-effective way of growing cells similar to those found in a multicellular organismin vitro. The cells are used for a wide variety of purposes, from testingtoxicity of compounds or drugs to production of eukaryotic proteins.^{[citation needed]}

While immortalised cell lines often originate from a well-known tissue type, they have undergone significant mutations to become immortal. This can alter the biology of the cell and must be taken into consideration in any analysis. Further, cell lines can change genetically over multiple passages, leading to phenotypic differences among isolates and potentially different experimental results depending on when and with what strain isolate an experiment is conducted.^[3]

Many cell lines that are widely used forbiomedical research have beencontaminated and overgrown by other, more aggressive cells. For example, supposed thyroid lines were actually melanoma cells, supposed prostate tissue was actually bladder cancer, and supposed normal uterine cultures were actually breast cancer.^[4]

There are several methods for generating immortalised cell lines:^[5]

1. Isolation from a naturally occurring cancer. This is the original method for generating an immortalised cell line. A major example is humanHeLa, a line derived from cervical cancer cells taken on February 8, 1951 from Henrietta Lacks, a 31-year-old African-American mother of five, who died of cancer on October 4, 1951.^[6]
2. Introduction of a viral gene that partially deregulates the cell cycle (e.g., the adenovirus type 5 E1 gene was used to immortalise theHEK 293 cell line; theEpstein–Barr virus can immortaliseB lymphocytes by infection^[7]).
3. Artificialexpression of keyproteins required for immortality, for exampletelomerase which prevents degradation ofchromosome ends during DNA replication in eukaryotes.^[8]
4. Hybridoma technology, specifically used for generating immortalisedantibody-producingB cell lines, where an antibody-producing B cell is fused with amyeloma (B cell cancer) cell.^[9]

There are several examples of immortalised cell lines, each with different properties. Most immortalised cell lines are classified by the cell type they originated from or are most similar to biologically

• 3T3 cells – a mousefibroblast cell line derived from a spontaneous mutation in cultured mouse embryo tissue.
• A549 cells – derived from a cancer patientlung tumor
• HeLa cells – a widely used human cell line isolated from cervical cancer patientHenrietta Lacks
• HEK 293 cells – derived from human fetal cells
• Huh7 cells –hepatocyte-derived carcinoma cell line
• Jurkat cells – a humanT lymphocyte cell line isolated from a case of leukemia
• OK cells – derived from femaleNorth American opossum kidney cells
• Ptk2 cells – derived from malelong-nosed potoroo epithelial kidney cells
• Vero cells – a monkeykidney cell line that arose by spontaneous immortalisation

• Cellosaurus, knowledge base of cell lines
• IGRhCellID, database of cell lines
• List of breast cancer cell lines

• ATCC –American Type Culture Collection
• Cellosaurus – a knowledge resource on cell lines
• CellBank Australia – Australia's national not-for-profit cell line repository

• Cell culture techniques
• Cellular senescence
• Immortality
• Senescence

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