The DOI matches its Crossref record; 49 of the 49 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
HeLa cells 50 years on: the good, the bad and the ugly
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
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?
In the citing paper
“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 [17]
In the citing paper
“Dubbed by some”
From The history, landscape, and outlook of human cell line authentication and security (2024) · cites this paper as [53]
Citations
Cites
(1952) · Cancer Research · Cited by 987
STUDIES ON THE PROPAGATION IN VITRO OF POLIOMYELITIS VIRUSES
Scherer, W. F., Syverton, J. T., & Gey, G. O. (1953) · Journal of Experimental Medicine · doi:10.1084/jem.97.5.695 · Cited by 856
(1943) · JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute · doi:10.1093/jnci/4.2.165 · Cited by 833
Observations on the living developing nerve fiber
Harrison, R. G. (1906) · Experimental Biology and Medicine · doi:10.3181/00379727-4-98 · Cited by 609
ON THE PERMANENT LIFE OF TISSUES OUTSIDE OF THE ORGANISM
Carrel, A. (1912) · The Journal of Experimental Medicine · doi:10.1084/jem.15.5.516 · Cited by 492
Propagation in a Fluid Medium of a Human Epidermoid Carcinoma, Strain KB
Eagle, H. (1955) · Experimental Biology and Medicine · doi:10.3181/00379727-89-21811 · Cited by 483
Short tandem repeat profiling provides an international reference standard for human cell lines
Masters, J. R., Thomson, J. A., Daly-Burns, B., Reid, Y. A., Dirks, W. G., Packer, P., Toji, L. H., Ohno, T., Tanabe, H., Arlett, C. F., et al. (2001) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.121616198 · Cited by 478
Self-citationGalmiche, A., Rassow, J., Doye, A., Cagnol, S., Chambard, J., Contamin, S., de Thillot, V., Just, I., Ricci, V., Solcia, E., et al. (2000) · The EMBO Journal · doi:10.1093/emboj/19.23.6361 · Cited by 362
Human cancer cell lines: fact and fantasy
Masters, J. R. W. (2000) · Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology · doi:10.1038/35043102 · Cited by 352
Self-citationCross-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
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 5
- Lewis, W. H. Malignant cells. The Harvey Lectures 31, 214–234 (1936).
- Gold, M. A Conspiracy of Cells. One Woman's Immortal Legacy and the Scandal it Caused (State Univ. New York Press, New York, 1986).
- Jones, H. W., McKusick, V. A., Harper, P. S. & Wuu K. D. The HeLa cell and a reappraisal of its origin. Obstet. Gynecol. 38, 945–949 (1971).
- Rothfels, K. H., Axelrad, A. A., Siminovitch, L., McCulloch, E. A. & Parker, R. C. in Proc. 3rd Canadian Cancer Research Conference 1958 (ed. Begg, R. W.) 189–214 (Academic, New York, 1958).
- Davis, E. V. & Bolin, V. S. Continuous cultivation of isogenous cell lines from the human embryo. Fed. Proc. 19, 386 (1960).
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Park, J., Jiang, Q., Feng, D., Mao, L., & Zhou, H.-C. “. (2016) · Journal of the American Chemical Society · doi:10.1021/jacs.6b00007 · Cited by 916
A Census of Human Soluble Protein Complexes
Havugimana, P. C., Hart, T., Nepusz, T., Yang, H., Turinsky, A. L., Li, Z., Wang, P. I., Boutz, D. R., Fong, V., Phanse, S., et al. (2012) · Cell · doi:10.1016/j.cell.2012.08.011 · Cited by 869
Nanobio Silver: Its Interactions with Peptides and Bacteria, and Its Uses in Medicine
Eckhardt, S., Brunetto, P. S., Gagnon, J., Priebe, M., Giese, B., & Fromm, K. M. (2013) · Chemical Reviews · doi:10.1021/cr300288v · Cited by 805
Pan, C., Kumar, C., Bohl, S., Klingmueller, U., & Mann, M. (2009) · Molecular & Cellular Proteomics · doi:10.1074/mcp.m800258-mcp200 · Cited by 561
“overwhelmingly carried out in long-established cell lines (2).”
BackgroundAn Optimized Shotgun Strategy for the Rapid Generation of Comprehensive Human Proteomes
Bekker‐Jensen, D. B., Kelstrup, C. D., Batth, T. S., Buch-Larsen, S. C., Haldrup, C., Bramsen, J. B., Sørensen, K. D., Høyer, S., Orntoft, T. F., Andersen, C. L., et al. (2017) · Cell Systems · doi:10.1016/j.cels.2017.05.009 · Cited by 480
Metadata
- Authors
- Masters, J. R.
- Affiliations
- University College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Masters, John R.
- Venue
- Nature Reviews Cancer
- Published
- 2002-04
- Volume
- 2
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 315-319
- ISSN
- 1474-175X (ISSN-L)
- 1474-1768
- OpenAlex
- W2070468167
- Cited by
- 560
- References
- 49
- Citations by year
- 2026: 28 · 2025: 33 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 41 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 32 · 2020: 30 · 2019: 29 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 32 · 2016: 31 · 2015: 23 · 2014: 31 · 2013: 29 · 2012: 18
- FWCI
- 0.46
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature reviews. Cancer (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Viral Infectious Diseases and Gene Expression in Insects
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Issues, ethics and legal aspects › Biomedical Ethics and Regulation
- Health Sciences › Veterinary › Small Animals › Animal testing and alternatives
- Keywords
- HeLa cells, human cancer cell lines, cervical cancer, immortalized cell lines, scientific fraud, cell line authentication, history of cancer research
- MeSH terms
- Cytogenetics, Female, HeLa Cells, Humans, Research Design, Time Factors, Tumor Cells, Cultured
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.
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