A case study in misidentification of cancer cell lines: MCF-7/AdrR cells (re-designated NCI/ADR-RES) are derived from OVCAR-8 human ovarian carcinoma cells
Abstract
Multidrug-resistant MCF-7 breast adenocarcinoma cells (originally named MCF-7/AdrR cells and later re-designated NCI/ADR-RES) have served as an important and widely used research tool during the last two decades. However, the real identity of these cells has been in doubt since 1998 and has since been debated. The origin of NCI/ADR-RES cells has now been revealed by SNP and karyotypic analyses, carried out at the Sanger Institute and the NCI, respectively. The results of these analyses, recently posted on the Web, show that NCI/ADR-RES cells are derived from OVCAR-8 ovarian adenocarcinoma cells. The case of NCI/ADR-RES cells highlights a wide-spread problem of cell line cross-contamination and misidentification. Fortunately, this is a tractable problem that can be avoided by scrupulous genotyping of cell stocks and adoption of a few simple rules in cell culture practice.
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The National Institutes of Health may have allocated approximately $100 million to research involving the misidentified cell line NCI/ADR-RES.
“A stark illustration of this economic burden is the revelation that the National Institutes of Health (”
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High-loci STR assays have prevailed as the current institutional technique.
“RFLP, AmpFLP, and STR profiling have all been popular, but high-loci STR assays have prevailed as the current institutional technique [21,36,78,79,109,110].”
From The history, landscape, and outlook of human cell line authentication and security (2024) · cites this paper as [36]
Contamination rates and the frequency of high-profile cases demonstrate universal vulnerability to CCCM.
“However, contamination rates and the frequency of high-profile cases demonstrate the universal vulnerability to CCCM [34][35][36][37].”
From The history, landscape, and outlook of human cell line authentication and security (2024) · cites this paper as [36]
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- Authors
- Liscovitch, M., & Ravid, D.
- Affiliations
- Weizmann Institute of Science (IL)
- Corresponding author
- Liscovitch, Mordechai
- Venue
- Cancer Letters
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2007-01
- Volume
- 245
- Issue
- 1-2
- Pages
- 350-352
- ISSN
- 0304-3835 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1995078853
- Cited by
- 152
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 5 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 13 · 2012: 12
- FWCI
- 7.28
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cancer Letters (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Cancer Institute
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Cancer Cells and Metastasis
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Viral Infectious Diseases and Gene Expression in Insects
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Cancer Research › Cancer Genomics and Diagnostics
- Keywords
- cell line misidentification, cell line cross-contamination, OVCAR8, multidrug resistance, breast adenocarcinoma, ovarian adenocarcinoma, SNP genotyping, karyology, cell line origin
- MeSH terms
- Adenocarcinoma, Antibiotics, Antineoplastic, Clone Cells, Doxorubicin, Female, Humans, Mutation, Ovarian Neoplasms, Tumor Suppressor Protein p53, Drug Resistance, Neoplasm, Gene Expression Profiling, Cell Line, Tumor
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