Cell Line Authentication

Tissue culture cells are important tools in many laboratories. Unfortunately, many cell lines are misidentified or contaminated with other cells, potentially invalidating published data and wasting time and laboratory resources. Due to the magnitude of this problem, the National Institutes of Health and many journals now recommend or require cell line authentication before grant approval or acceptance for publication, making cell line authentication an important concern for researchers. Identification can be achieved by genetic profiling using polymorphic short tandem repeat (STR) loci.

To standardize STR analysis for human cell line authentication, the American Tissue Culture Collection (ATCC) Standards Development Organization Workgroup has issued standard ASN-0002, which recommends the use of at least eight STR loci (TH01, TPOX, vWA, CSF1PO, D16S539, D7S820, D13S317 and D5S818) plus Amelogenin for gender identification for human cell line authentication.

Cell line authentication is recommended upon receipt of a new cell line and at regular intervals during passages.