New cell lines

OX-133

October 2021

OX-133, a monoclonal antibody recognizes protein-bound N-ethylmaleimide (NEM) bound to cysteine residues in proteins. OX-133 detects NEM-modified proteins on the cell surface and can be used as an affinity matrix to purify NEM-modified proteins from cell lysates. It does not cross react with any other alkylating agent, making it a highly selective reagent for the purification of NEM-labelled proteins and potentially peptides for mass spectrometry-based analysis.

N14A and N15A

February 2021

Pseudomyxoma peritonei (PMP) is a rare tumour of appendiceal origin which is treated primarily with cytoreductive surgery, however the morbidity is high. PMP is considered resistant to most chemotherapies and its molecular biology little understudied. Currently there is no platform for pre-clinical drug testing against this neoplasm. The development and availability of two immortalised cell lines (N14A and N15A) provides a resource fit for pre-clinical anti-tumour drug testing and oncogene activity in Pseudomyoma peritonei (PMP) tumour biology. 

HT29 Derivatives

December 2020

The definition of the biological characteristics for resistance to chemotherapeutic treatments in tumour cells is important for developing new treatment strategies. Human colon carcinomas are heterogeneous at the molecular and cellular levels and pose a major challenge in defining the characteristics which lead to resistance to chemotherapy. Distinct sub-populations of mucus-secreting cells have been derived from the colon cancer cell line HT29 after long-term treatment with the anti-cancer drugs, 5-fluorouracil (5FU) and methotrexate (MTX) by the research group led by Thécla Lesuffleur and Alain Zweibaum (Inserm). Mucins are increasingly implicated as playing a role in carcinogenesis and their expression have been studied in drug-resistant subpopulations of the HT29 colon carcinoma cell line. These subpopulations and clones display different patterns of mucin expression in addition to differing resistance to MTX and 5FU and provide useful in vitro models to study the potential role of mucins or other biological markers in drug resistance pathways. 

Rev-Erb alpha (NR1D1)^NEW 

November 2020

At the molecular level the circadian clock is conserved in all cell types and is driven by a range of transcriptional factors and loops (involving BMAL1, CLOCK and NPAS2) and rhythmic negative feedback which include Cry1/2, Per1/2 and the nuclear receptors REV-ERBα and REV-ERBβ (also known as NR1D1 and NR1D2). These nuclear receptors act as rhythmic repressors to limit inflammatory activity (from inflammatory triggers LPS or cytokine challenges). REV-ERBα within the airway epithelial cells, and the sentinel macrophages, plays a critical role in pulmonary inflammation, and that REV-ERBα serves as a signalling relay for 2-way communication between the core circadian clock and elaboration of the inflammatory reaction. REV-ERBα is dominant over REV-ERBβ, but there is some redundancy between the 2 paralogs. The monoclonal antibody produced (REV-ERBα (NR1D1)) specifically detects REV-ERBα but not its paralog REV-ERBβ (NR1D2).

KT15^NEW

November 2020

Hybridoma (clone KT15) was established by the fusion of mouse myeloma cells (NS0) with spleen cells from Sprague Dawley rats immunised with mouse T cell clone, C6, H-2KK restricted antigen specific cytotoxic lymphocytes (CTL). It is a monoclonal producing antibody which reacts with a non-polymorphic epitope on the mouse CD8 alpha chain (i.e. mouse Ly2.1 and Ly2.2 cells). It produces monoclonal antibodies with subclass Rat IgG2aλ.

Aag2-AF5

June 2020 

Insect lines have been used in the propagation of viruses and for the elucidation of molecular mechanisms of cellular responses to viral infection. Viruses transmitted by arthropod vectors to vertebrate hosts are known as arboviruses, and they are spread by vectors, including mosquitoes, ticks, midges, and sandflies. Arboviruses most commonly belong to the Bunyaviridae, Togaviridae, Flaviviridae, and Reoviridae families. In many instances they greatly impact human and animal health. Mosquitoes of the Aedes genus transmit the human-pathogenic chikungunya (CHIKV), dengue (DENV), and Zika (ZIKV) viruses. Aag2-AF5 is a single cell clone derived from the Aag2 cell line. Aag2-AF5 is immunocompetent for RNAi (siRNA and piRNA pathways) and NF-κB signalling.

Aag2-AF319^NEW

June 2020

Arboviruses that most commonly belong to the Bunyaviridae, Togaviridae, Flaviviridae, and Reoviridae families are transmitted by insect vectors, including mosquitoes, ticks, midges, and sandflies. The major antiviral response in mosquitoes is a sequence-specific RNA degredation mechanism called RNA interference (RNAi). Several pathways that differ in their induction including effector proteins, and small RNA molecules: small interfering RNA (siRNA), microRNA (miRNA), and PIWI-interacting RNA (piRNA) may also be involved. The exogenous siRNA (exo-siRNA) pathway is triggered through dicer 2 (Dcr2) recognition of virus double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), which is processed into 21-nucleotide (nt)-long virus-specific siRNAs (vsiRNA) that are unwound and loaded into Argonaute 2 (Ago2) in the multiprotein RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). It is assumed that the complementary strand of the vsiRNA duplex is degraded, while the remaining strand guides Ago2 to complementary viral RNA, followed by cleavage and degradation of the target RNA. Arbovirus-specific vsiRNAs have been reported for a variety of arbovirus-infected mosquitoes. In particular it has been shown to play a key role in the antiviral response, as its knockdown enhances virus replication. Aag2-AF319 is a clonal homozygous cell line containing a Dcr2 knockout mutation and should facilitate the characterisation of other non-canonical mechanisms in antiviral response.

NIMP-R14 

January 2020 

The NIMP-R14 cell line is a rat hybridoma, producing a monoclonal antibody IgG2b which detects neutrophils. 

OVPA8

January 2020

High-grade serous ovarian carcinoma (HGSOC) is the most frequent histological type of ovarian cancer and the one with worst clinical prognosis. The majority of established ovarian cancer cell lines used in the research have unclear histological origin and probably do not represent HGSOC. New and reliable cellular models of HGSOC are needed. A new cell line, OVPA8, has been established and characterized.

This newly-established OVPA8 cell line shows morphologic and genetic features consistent with HGSOC, such as epithelial morphology, multiple chromosomal aberrations, TP53 mutation, BRCA1 mutation, and loss of one copy of BRCA2. The OVPA8 line has a stable STR profile. Cells are positive for EpCAM, CK19, and CD44 and have a relatively low plating efficiency, ability to form spheroids, a low migration rate, and intermediate invasiveness in Matrigel™, compared to other ovarian cancer lines. OVPA8 is sensitive to paclitaxel and resistant to cisplatin and can be a valuable preclinical model for studies on high-grade serous ovarian cancer.    

BB2

January 2020 

The monoclonal antibody BBE, alongside TYG 5 are antibodies developed to identify a 10-amino acid sequence from the major structural protein of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae Tyl virus-like particle. These two sequences have overlapping binding sites, which is useful when used in combination for double labelling in immunofluorescence or immunoelectron microscopy. BB2 does not cross-react with trypanosomal proteins.  

CD1B4

January 2020

The centriole is a feature of eukaryotic cells that construct cilia or flagella and is unusual in that it is one of the few organelles which exist in a single copy. In G1, a cell has two centrioles, one is mature and was generated at least two cell cycles ago. The other was produced in the previous cell cycle and is immature. Both centrioles then nucleate one procentriole each which subsequently elongate to full-length centrioles, usually in S or G2 phase.

The CD1B4 antibody has been used to specifically detect one centriole in the centriole pair, specifically the mature centriole. This epitope has been identified as a 96-kD protein termed “Cenexin”.  This antibody stains the mature centriole regardless of whether it is forming a cilium and it stains a single centriole in cells which do not possess a primary cilia. 

L1C6

January 2020 

The African parasite Trypanosoma brucei causes African sleeping sickness in cattle and humans. Trypanosomes possess a single flagellum that is attached to their cell body via the flagellum attachment zone (FAZ). There is a complex transmembrane crosslinking of this FAZ to the paraflagellar rod (PFR) and axoneme within the flagellum. Using the L1C6 antibody (amongst others developed in the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, Oxford) it has been shown that although the growth of both cytoplasmic FAZ filament and external paraflagellar rod (PFR) are related, their growth initiates at different time points during the cell cycle and the two structures elongate at distinct rates.

HT29 drug resistant clones

December 2019

Mucins are increasingly implicated as playing a role in the development of colon cancer and the resistance of tumour cells to chemotherapy. Distinct sub-populations of mucus-secreting cells have been obtained from the colon cancer cell line HT-29 after long-term treatment with the anti-cancer drugs, methotrexate (MTX) and 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), (Lesuffleur et.al, 1990, Lesuffleur et.al, 1991, respectively).

HipSci 

October 2019

A key component of the Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Initiative (HipSci) is the systematic generation of iPSCs from hundreds of donors using a standardised experimental pipeline.  The iPSC lines are generated from hundreds of healthy donors, plus several cohorts of donors with inherited genetic diseases. The use of cell lines from phenotypically normal donors allows the study of how common genetic variations affect the cellular phenotypes. 

HipSci

December 2019

A key component of the Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Initiative (HipSci) is the systematic generation of iPSCs from hundreds of donors using a standardised experimental pipeline.  The iPSC lines are generated from hundreds of healthy donors, plus several cohorts of donors with inherited genetic diseases. The use of cell lines from phenotypically normal donors allows the study of how common genetic variations affect the cellular phenotypes. 

PEO1 CDDP

January 2019

The PEO1-CDDP Cell Line is an in-vitro model to understand the changes in EGF signalling after the onset of cisplatin resistance. Coupled with this change in drug sensitivity, this model also has a modified responsiveness to ligands of the erbB receptor family. This model will be helpful in studying the changes in cellular signalling after drug treatment, which are currently attracting a great deal of interest and this model will be of particular relevance when cytotoxic therapy is combined with signalling inhibitors.

Immortalised mouse embryonic fibroblast cell lines

January 2019

The research group led by Professor Catrin Pritchard of University of Leicester, UK, has developed a series of transgenic mouse models containing knockout, inactivating or oncogenic mutations in the c-raf gene. The c-raf protein has the ability to activate the RAS/RAF/MEK/ERK signal transduction cascade. The RAS/RAF/MEK/ERK cascade is a conserved intracellular signalling pathway that plays a crucial role in controlling the ability of cells to respond to their environment. These investigators have derived immortalised mouse embryonic fibroblast cell lines from these transgenic mice.  These derived cell lines provide in vitro models to assess the role of mutations in c-Raf1 in response to apoptotic stimuli and their capability to respond to other external stimuli via the RAS/RAF/MEK/ERK intracellular signalling pathway.   

Anti-oestrogen resistant breast cancer cell lines

January 2019

Ximbio (formerly known as Cancer Research Technology, UK) has announced the availability of anti-oestrogen resistant breast cancer cell lines from the research of Dr Anne Lykkesfeldt at the Danish Cancer Society. These cell lines have been developed, characterised and published for a number of subtypes of parental the human breast cancer cell lines MCF-7 and T47D  which  demonstrate resistance to hormone-dependent breast cancer treatments, both first-line (tamoxifen or aromatase inhibitors, anastrozole, exemestane, letrozole) and second-line treatments (fulvestrant). Both parental cell lines, MCF-7 and T47D, are dependent on oestrogen for growth and as a result the oestrogen receptor (ER) has become a key target for clinical therapies.  The anti-oestrogen resistant cell lines offer the potential for developing novel predicative biomarkers for therapy response and an improved understanding of the underlying molecular mechanisms of resistance, supporting new drug discovery. 

OX-47

January 2019

The hybridoma cell line OX-47 secretes mouse monoclonal IgG1 antibody reactive with rat CD147 membrane protein. This antibody binds to activated rat T-lymphocytes.  It reacts to all T and B cell blasts strongly. It gives weak labelling to thoracic duct lymphocytes and thymocytes. The antibody labels vascular endothelium, kidney tubules and brain capillaries.

HipSci Panels

April 2017

For new users of our iPSC resource, we have composed two panels of lines from the HipSci iPSC collection that we would recommend. These lines have been selected based on their high pluritest scores, low CNV’s, comprehensively characterised assay data, and their ability to differentiate.

These lines are also available to order as individual lines.

Nd ES

January 2017

A mouse embryonic stem cell (ES) line (Nd) containing a novel fluorescent reporter (VNP) to investigate the temporal dynamics of Nanog expression in mouse and to dissect the lineage potential at different Nanog expression levels. This novel reporter ES cell line allows the accurate monitoring the dynamic expression of the transcription factor Nanog in the pluripotent state. The cell line will be a valuable tool to obtain quantitative measurements of global gene expression in pluripotent mouse ES cells in different states, allowing a detailed molecular mapping of the pluripotent state.

CHO lines

A number of new CHO cell line variants, developed in the laboratory of Dr Mike Clark at Cambridge University have been deposited with the ECACC General Collection, by Cambridge Enterprise. These CHO cell lines express different allotypes of Fc gamma RIIA receptors on the cell surface and are useful for the investigating the binding of recombinant antibodies to human Fc receptors. Cell lines expressing human and macaque Fc receptors have been developed since these are both useful to pre-clinical research. The cell lines may be used for the measurement, by flow cytometry, of monomeric IgG binding or complexed  IgG binding to receptors. They are also used for studying the association of Fc receptor bearing cell lines with red blood cells coated with IgG. They are used in assays that include the target cell of the IgG, comparing natural IgG constant regions, mutated IgG constant regions and those with altered carbohydrate profiles. The cell lines may also be used as a release assay for batches of clinical grade antibodies since binding will be sensitive to aggregates or changes in carbohydrate composition.

L929/A (an Adriamycin-resistant cell line)

This adriamycin-resistant cell line has been developed by exposure of the parent L929 murine fibroblast cell line (ECACC catalogue no. 85011425) to increasing concentrations of adriamycin in vitro. L929/A cells can be used in the development of novel anti-cancer treatments. The parent cell line L929 was derived from normal subcutaneous areolar adipose tissue.

A Reporter Cell Line for Use in Autophagy Studies

A stable cell line expressing EGFP-tagged LC3 (rat) in background of HEK293 cell line. This reporter cell line can be used to monitor induction of autophagy after amino acid starvation or rapamycin treatment as well as autophagosome formation. Also, this cell line provides a useful tool for the study of autophagy using GFP-LC3 as a standard assay read out by both immunofluorescence and biochemical methods.

HeLa-Mitotrap ‘Knock-sideways’ Cell Lines for Investigating Protein Function

Two new HeLa-Mitotrap cell lines, which can be used to determine the function of a protein, by rapidly inactivating the protein of interest through rapamycin induced rerouting to the mitochondria, a ‘knock sideways’ approach, are now available from ECACC. This method of protein inactivation, which relocates proteins away from their site of action rather than destroying them, is more rapid than knockout or knock down strategies.

ULK cell lines for autophagy research

A series of mouse embryonic fibroblasts with different capability for  uncoordinated (Unc)-51-like kinase 1 and 2 (ULK1 and ULK2) activity, which are known to play a critical role during the activation of autophagy, are now available from PHE’s European Collection of Authenticated Cell Cultures (ECACC).  Autophagy is the mechanism by which a cell degrades unnecessary or dysfunctional cellular components and has been implicated in several medical scenarios such as cancer, neurodegeneration and immunity related disorders.  The cell lines were deposited by Dr Sharon Tooze of Cancer Research UK.