Curbing rampant cross-contamination and misidentification of cell lines
Open accessAbstract
A son's challenge started an emeritus professor of biology on a three-year odyssey to get biological researchers to correct a decades-long problem with cross-contaminated and misidentified cell lines. These errors may account for more than 15% of mammalian cultures, wasting resources and undermining the integrity of research.
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Mycoplasma contamination rarely induces morphological changes, instead altering biosynthetic pathways, genetics, and general cell function, and therefore must be assayed chemically or biologically.
“Mycoplasma contamination rarely induces morphological changes, instead altering biosynthetic pathways, genetics, and general cell function, and therefore must be assayed chemically or biologically [13][14][15].”
From The history, landscape, and outlook of human cell line authentication and security (2024) · cites this paper as [15]
The Introduction (page unavailable) reports altered nucleic-acid synthesis, chromosome breakage, arginine depletion, and interference with cell fusion from mycoplasma contamination. It also says contaminated cultures do not become turbid and describes PCR detection, but it does not say that cell morphology rarely changes or that testing must specifically be chemical or biological. (LLM, conf=0.86)
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Cites
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
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Research works printed but not linked: 6
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- Gold, M. 1985. Conspiracy of Cells. State University of New York Press, Albany, NY.170 pp.
- O’Brien, S.J. 2001. Cell culture forensics. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA98:7656–7658.
- Freshney, R.I. 1994. Culture of Animal Cells, 3rd ed.Wiley-Liss, New York.
- Ryan, J. 2008. Understanding and Managing Cell Culture Contamination. Corning Technical Bulletin, Corning, NY.
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Cell line misidentification: the beginning of the end
American Type Culture Collection Standards Development Organization Workgroup ASN-0002 (2010) · Nature Reviews Cancer · doi:10.1038/nrc2852 · Cited by 266 · see citing works
A forensic path to RGC-5 cell line identification: lessons learned
Krishnamoorthy, R. R., Clark, A. F., Daudt, D., Vishwanatha, J. K., & Yorio, T. (2013) · Investigative Opthalmology & Visual Science · doi:10.1167/iovs.13-12085 · Cited by 132 · see citing works
Improved reproducibility by assuring confidence in measurements in biomedical research
Plant, A. L., Locascio, L. E., May, W. E., & Gallagher, P. D. (2014) · Nature Methods · doi:10.1038/nmeth.3076 · Cited by 89 · see citing works
https://www.altex.org/index.php/altex/article/view/1339
Krebs, A., Waldmann, T., Wilks, M. F., van Vugt-Lussenburg, B. M. A., van der Burg, B., Terron, A., Steger-Hartmann, T., Ruegg, J., Rovida, C., Pedersen, E., et al. (2019) · ALTEX · doi:10.14573/altex.1909271 · Cited by 77 · see citing works
Kniss, D. A., & Summerfield, T. L. (2014) · Reproductive Sciences · doi:10.1177/1933719114522518 · Cited by 33 · 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
- Authors
- Nardone, R. M.
- Affiliations
- Catholic University of America (US)
- Corresponding author
- Nardone, Roland M.
- Venue
- BioTechniques
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2008-09
- Volume
- 45
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 221-227
- ISSN
- 0736-6205 (ISSN-L)
- 1940-9818
- OpenAlex
- W2166654390
- Cited by
- 50
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 1.65
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- BioTechniques (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Viral Infectious Diseases and Gene Expression in Insects
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Research Data Management Practices
- Health Sciences › Veterinary › Small Animals › Animal testing and alternatives
- Keywords
- cell line contamination, cell line misidentification, cross-contamination, cell culture, research integrity, cell line authentication, research misconduct
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Cell Line, Cells, Cultured, DNA, Neoplasm, HeLa Cells, Humans, Isoenzymes, Karyotyping, Tumor Cells, Cultured, Reproducibility of Results, DNA Fingerprinting, Cell Culture Techniques, Cell Lineage, Gene Expression Profiling
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