Apparent HeLa Cell Contamination of Human Heteroploid Cell Lines
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
HeLa and its derivatives HeLa S3, AV3 and WISH contaminations are notorious problems and may be simply detected by either isoenzyme or STR profiling.
“HeLa [16] and its derivatives HeLa S3, AV3 [17] and WISH contaminations are notorious problems and may be simply detected by either isoenzyme [18] or STR profiling [19].”
From Investigation of Cross-Contamination and Misidentification of 278 Widely Used Tumor Cell Lines (2017) · cites this paper as [18]
The problems with cell line misidentification have been known for decades, commencing with the controversies around HeLa cells in the 1960s.
“The problems with cell line misidentification [5] have been known for decades, commencing with the controversies around HeLa cells in the 1960s [6–10].”
From The ghosts of HeLa: How cell line misidentification contaminates the scientific literature (2017) · cites this paper as [10]
HeLa cells have been a notorious contaminant of cell culture work for decades.
“Dubbed by some”
From The history, landscape, and outlook of human cell line authentication and security (2024) · cites this paper as [54]
In 1967, Stanley Gartler published data showing that HeLa had infected and taken over the cultures of 18 different cell lines.
“In 1967, Stanley Gartler published data showing that HeLa had infected and taken over the cultures of 18 different cell lines [3].”
From Genetic Insights into the Economic Toll of Cell Line Misidentification: A Comprehensive Review (2026) · cites this paper as [3]
Cites
Selection in Mammalian Mosaic Cell PopulationsPreprint
Gartler, S. M., & Linder, D. (1964) · Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology · doi:10.1101/sqb.1964.029.01.028 · Cited by 70 · see citing works
Self-citationImmunological and Karyological Criteria for Identification of Cell Lines 2
Defendi, V., Billingham, R. E., Silvers, W. K., & Moorhead, P. S. (1960) · JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute · doi:10.1093/jnci/25.2.359 · Cited by 57 · see citing works
Brand, K. G., & Syverton, J. T. (1962) · JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute · doi:10.1093/jnci/28.1.147 · Cited by 46 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 4
- Rothfels, K. H., Axelrad, A. A., Siminovitch, L., McCulloch, E. A., and Parker, R. C., in Proc. Third Canadian Cancer Res. Conf. 1958 (edit. by Begg, R. W.), 189 (Academic Press, 1959).
- Defendi, V., Billingham, R. E., Silvers, W. K., and Moorhead, P., J. Nat. Cancer Inst., 25, 359 (1960).
- Brand, K. G., and Syverton, J. T., J. Nat. Cancer Inst., 28, 147 (1962).
- Gartler, Stanley M., Nat. Cancer Inst. Mono., 26, 167 (1967).
Cited by
Sorted by citations
The Cellosaurus, a Cell-Line Knowledge Resource
Bairoch, A. (2018) · Journal of Biomolecular Techniques JBT · doi:10.7171/jbt.18-2902-002 · Cited by 807 · see citing works
HeLa cells 50 years on: the good, the bad and the ugly
Masters, J. R. (2002) · Nature Reviews Cancer · doi:10.1038/nrc775 · Cited by 560 · see citing works
The Costs of using Unauthenticated, Over-Passaged Cell Lines: How Much more Data do we Need?
Hughes, P., Marshall, D., Reid, Y., Parkes, H., & Gelber, C. (2007) · BioTechniques · doi:10.2144/000112598 · Cited by 434 · see citing works
Cross-contamination of cells in culture
Nelson-Rees, W. A., Daniels, D. W., & Flandermeyer, R. R. (1981) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.6451928 · Cited by 329 · see citing works
Genotyping of 73 UM‐SCC head and neck squamous cell carcinoma cell lines
Brenner, J. C., Graham, M. P., Kumar, B., Saunders, L. M., Kupfer, R., Lyons, R. H., Bradford, C. R., & Carey, T. E. (2010) · Head & Neck · doi:10.1002/hed.21198 · Cited by 304 · see citing works
Vasilevsky, N. A., Brush, M. H., Paddock, H., Ponting, L., Tripathy, S. J., LaRocca, G. M., & Haendel, M. A. (2013) · PeerJ · doi:10.7717/peerj.148 · Cited by 271 · see citing works
van der Meer, D., Barthorpe, S., Yang, W., Lightfoot, H., Hall, C., Gilbert, J., Francies, H. E., & Garnett, M. J. (2019) · Nucleic Acids Research · doi:10.1093/nar/gky872 · Cited by 195 · see citing works
The ghosts of HeLa: How cell line misidentification contaminates the scientific literature
Horbach, S. P. J. M., & Halffman, W. (2017) · PLOS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0186281 · Cited by 167 · see citing works
Persistent use of “false” cell lines
Lacroix, M. (2008) · International Journal of Cancer · doi:10.1002/ijc.23233 · Cited by 151 · see citing works
A Beginner’s Guide to Cell Culture: Practical Advice for Preventing Needless Problems
Weiskirchen, S., Schröder, S. K., Buhl, E. M., & Weiskirchen, R. (2023) · Cells · doi:10.3390/cells12050682 · Cited by 148 · see citing works
Ye, F., Chen, C., Qin, J., Liu, J., & Zheng, C. (2015) · The FASEB Journal · doi:10.1096/fj.14-266718 · Cited by 144 · see citing works
Investigation of Cross-Contamination and Misidentification of 278 Widely Used Tumor Cell Lines
Huang, Y., Liu, Y., Zheng, C., & Shen, C. (2017) · PLOS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0170384 · Cited by 105 · see citing works
Phuchareon, J., Ohta, Y., Woo, J. M., Eisele, D. W., & Tetsu, O. (2009) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0006040 · Cited by 105 · see citing works
Cell line authentication: a necessity for reproducible biomedical research
Souren, N. Y., Fusenig, N. E., Heck, S., Dirks, W. G., Capes‐Davis, A., Bianchini, F., & Plass, C. (2022) · The EMBO Journal · doi:10.15252/embj.2022111307 · Cited by 73 · see citing works
Kniss, D. A., & Summerfield, T. L. (2014) · Reproductive Sciences · doi:10.1177/1933719114522518 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
Online Verification of Human Cell Line Identity by STR DNA Typing
Dirks, W. G., & Drexler, H. G. (2011) · Methods in Molecular Biology · doi:10.1007/978-1-61779-080-5_5 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
Korch, C. T., & Capes-Davis, A. (2021) · SLAS Discovery · doi:10.1177/24725552211051963 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Established Liver Cell Lines: Are You Sure to Have the Right Ones?
Weiskirchen, R. (2022) · Livers · doi:10.3390/livers2030015 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Gu, M., Yang, M., He, J., Xia, S., Zhang, Z., Wang, Y., Zheng, C., & Shen, C. (2022) · International Journal of Cancer · doi:10.1002/ijc.33789 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
DNA fingerprinting of human cell lines using PCR amplification of fragment length polymorphisms
Yan, R., Ottenbreit, M., Hukku, B., Mally, M., Chou, S., & Kaplan, J. (1996) · In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology - Animal · doi:10.1007/bf02724050 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
The history, landscape, and outlook of human cell line authentication and security
Harbut, E., Makris, Y., Pertsemlidis, A., & Bleris, L. (2024) · SLAS Discovery · doi:10.1016/j.slasd.2024.100194 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Genetic Insights into the Economic Toll of Cell Line Misidentification: A Comprehensive Review
Weiskirchen, R. (2026) · Medical Sciences · doi:10.3390/medsci14010025 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
- Authors
- GARTLER, S. M.
- Affiliations
- University of Washington (US)
- Corresponding author
- GARTLER, STANLEY M.
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 1968-02
- Volume
- 217
- Issue
- 5130
- Pages
- 750-751
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2093250472
- Semantic Scholar
- a81d9a5e213c34e62e824f6868396c1cf56f7c9c
- Cited by
- 226
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 2.60
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Viral Infectious Diseases and Gene Expression in Insects
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic diversity and population structure
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genomic variations and chromosomal abnormalities
- Keywords
- glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, phosphoglucomutase, isozyme polymorphism, electrophoretic polymorphism, cell line authentication, marker stability, American Type Culture Collection
- MeSH terms
- Electrophoresis, Genotype, Glucosephosphate Dehydrogenase, HeLa Cells, Heterozygote, Humans, Molecular Biology, Phenotype, Phosphoglucomutase, Polymorphism, Genetic, Polyploidy, Black People, White People, Culture Techniques
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
