Addressing Cell-Line Contamination to Improve Data Reproducibility:Best Practices for Validing, Storing, and Handling Cell Culture Uphold Research Integrity

摘要

The contamination of cell lines by other cell lines or by microbes is a plague on the biomedical research community.1 Cell-line misidentification was first acknowledged nearly half a century ago upon the discovery of HeLa contamination of 18 cell lines.2 The problem persists to this day, as an estimated 15-20% of all cell lines used in biomedical research continue to be misidentified.3 A PubMed query of five cell lines identified in the 1960s as HeLa-contaminated (KB, HEp-2, Chang liver, Int-407, and WISH) found nearly 400 citations between March 2009 and February 2014. Despite peer review, many of the published articles still described these cell lines as "normal" human cells, not cervical cancer cells.