Note of caution: Contaminations of hepatocellular cell lines

Cell lines derived from human primary liver tumours are very important tools for developing pre-clinical models and performing functional validation on specific genes, proteins and pathways. More than one hundred cell lines derived from hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have been listed in the Cellosaurus database (Release: Version 22 May 2017; http://web.expasy.org/cellosaurus/). Overall, the number of available cell lines is limited by the efficiency of cell growth in vitro after tumour dissociation. Indeed, successful establishment of HCC cell lines is enriched in tumours with HBV infection, showing TP53 mutations and poor differentiation, whereas CTNNB1 mutations activating ß-catenin appeared to be under-represented in HCC cell lines. Qiu et al. showed recently that, if maintained properly, the natural molecular alterations of HCCs were faithfully represented in the different models. [1] Qiu Z. Zou K. Zhuang L. Qin J. Li H. Li C. et al. Hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines retain the genomic and transcriptomic landscapes of primary human cancers. Sci Rep. 2016; 6: 27411 Crossref PubMed Scopus (43) Google Scholar At least 35 different HCC cell lines are available in referenced repositories. Additional HCC cell lines are currently being generated from laboratories around the world.