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The Genomic and Transcriptomic Landscape of a HeLa Cell Line
Abstract
HeLa is the most widely used model cell line for studying human cellular and molecular biology. To date, no genomic reference for this cell line has been released, and experiments have relied on the human reference genome. Effective design and interpretation of molecular genetic studies performed using HeLa cells require accurate genomic information. Here we present a detailed genomic and transcriptomic characterization of a HeLa cell line. We performed DNA and RNA sequencing of a HeLa Kyoto cell line and analyzed its mutational portfolio and gene expression profile. Segmentation of the genome according to copy number revealed a remarkably high level of aneuploidy and numerous large structural variants at unprecedented resolution. Some of the extensive genomic rearrangements are indicative of catastrophic chromosome shattering, known as chromothripsis. Our analysis of the HeLa gene expression profile revealed that several pathways, including cell cycle and DNA repair, exhibit significantly different expression patterns from those in normal human tissues. Our results provide the first detailed account of genomic variants in the HeLa genome, yielding insight into their impact on gene expression and cellular function as well as their origins. This study underscores the importance of accounting for the strikingly aberrant characteristics of HeLa cells when designing and interpreting experiments, and has implications for the use of HeLa as a model of human biology.
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![Figure 1 The genomic landscape of a HeLa cell line. (A) Circos plot (Krzywinski et al. 2009) of the HeLa genome with tracks representing read depth (100 kb-binned coverage), CN (color gradient from light green for CN1 to dark red for CN10), zygosity (pink: heterozygous; purple: homozygous), SNV density (1-Mb binned SNV count; darker blue for greater density), and translocation calls (colored arcs based on paired-end sequencing data: light blue; mate pair data: light green; both datasets: orange). (B) Histogram of called CN across the genome in percent. CN 0 corresponds to coverage less than half of the expected value for CN 1. A CN value of “NA” means no call could be made with confidence ≥0.95 (see Materials and Methods). (C) Overview of sequence variation in HeLa. Numbers of SNV and indel calls in HeLa, classified by overlap with dbSNP and the 1000 Genomes Project (dbSNP137). The y-axis shows the counts on a logarithmic scale. The four different classes of events represented on the x-axis are homozygous (“Hom.”) and heterozygous (“Het.”) SNVs and indels. (D) Variation observed in HeLa protein-coding genes relative to the human reference. Number of protein-coding genes containing SNVs, nonsynonymous SNVs, and damaging non-synonymous mutations [predicted by SIFT (Ng and Henikoff 2003)].](/paper-figures/0a35e111aeb04ad781741624781d42d3/the-genomic-and-transcriptomic-landscape-of-a-hela-cell-line-figure-1.jpg)



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“Generally, various cell lines have revolutionized scientific investigations and have found applications in vaccine development, drug testing for metabolism and toxicity, generating antibodies, exploring gene functions, creating artificial tissues like synthetic skin, and producing biologic substances such as therapeutic proteins [16,19,26].”
From Cell Immortality: In Vitro Effective Techniques to Achieve and Investigate Its Applications and Challenges (2024) · cites this paper as [26]
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“Major discoveries have been made using this cell line, including the development of the polio vaccine in 1953 [25], the link between human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical cancer, and the role of telomerase in chromosome maintenance [26].”
From Cell Immortality: In Vitro Effective Techniques to Achieve and Investigate Its Applications and Challenges (2024) · cites this paper as [26]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Landry, J. J. M., Pyl, P. T., Rausch, T., Zichner, T., Tekkedil, M. M., Stütz, A. M., Jauch, A., Aiyar, R. S., Pau, G., Delhomme, N., Gagneur, J., Korbel, J. O., Huber, W., & Steinmetz, L. M.
- Affiliations
- European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Genome Biology Unit, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
- University Hospital Heidelberg, Institute of Human Genetics, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
- Venue
- G3 Genes|Genomes|Genetics
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2013-08-01
- Volume
- 3
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 1213-1224
- ISSN
- 2160-1836
- PMC
- PMC3737162
- Cited by
- 416
- References
- 10
- Language
- en
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