Widespread intraspecies cross-contamination of human tumor cell lines arising at source

Short tandem repeat profiling provides an international reference standard for human cell lines

“…Despite a constant stream of reports demonstrating evidence of inter-and intraspecies crosscontamination (6-10), cross-contamination continues to occur at an intolerably high rate (11)(12)(13). In a recent paper describing new cell lines deposited at the German Cell Line Bank, 18% of the 252 ''new'' cell lines were cross-contaminants (14).…”

Availability, Standardization and Safety of Human Cells and Tissues for Drug Screening and Testing

“…However, whilst such organizations operate professionally, they cannot be expected to perform qualifi cation of the cells for all applications of each cell line, and this should therefore be an important part of the testing work-program. If an original and quality-controlled source of the cell line is not available, it is wise to obtain cells from more than one source in order to compare their performance and authenticity (see below), as cross-contamination of cell lines is all too common [7][8][9]. Likewise, cells with different histories of laboratory use have been shown to display different characteristics.…”

Quality Control Procedures for Stem Cell Lines

“…Application of methods based on the hybridization of various probes to Southern blots of cell line DNA developed rapidly in the 1990s [Gilbert et al, 1990;Hampe et al, 1992;Stacey et al, 1992], and quickly these powerful methods, including PCR-based DNA profiling, revealed numerous cases of cross-contamination [e.g., MacLeod et al, 1999;van Helden et al, 1988].…”