Over 30,000 published articles have mistaken cell lines. What about yours?

Root of mistake

The famous HeLa cells are world’s first immortal cell line and one of the most important and commonly used cell lines in medical research. Unfortunately, HeLa cells have been contaminating other cell cultures for decades. For example, these rapidly reproducing cells took over other cell cultures due to historical carelessness in the lab

However, such situation is not limited to HeLa cells alone! Researchers found more than 451 cell lines that were completely taken over by other cells. As a result, large amounts of cell cultures have been mislabeled in previous passage and storage. This leads to the situation that researchers don't even know a mistake has been made when publishing scientific articles.

Involvement of over 30,000 articles

Recently, Netherlands Radboud University researchers Willem Halffman and Serge Horbach wanted to know how big this problem was.

Halffman explained, "We researched what happened to scientific publications about misidentified cell lines from 1955 on. Many of these still list the wrong cells online and are often cited by other authors. After an extensive literary study, we believe this involves some 33,000 publications."

 "Most scientists don't intentionally publish findings on the wrong cells. It's an honest mistake. The more concerning problem is that the research data is potentially invalid and impossible to reproduce. What’s even scarier is that we’ve known about these wrongly identified cells for half a century, yet many researchers aren't aware of this. New articles are published every week about misidentified cells," said Serge Horbach.

Fear of reputation damage

Though many biomedical experts don’t know about the over 400 misidentified cell lines, it is undoubted that cell distribution centers play an important role, as this is where many researchers get their cells.

Halffman said, "Employees at these centers recognize the problem, but claim no one will listen to them. They’re angry (at the article publishing). Sometimes it involves semi-private companies that refuse to disclose anything for fear of reputation or financial damage. The biggest factor by far is pride and fear of reputation damage."

Recommended solution

Various measures have been developed over the years to prevent the exchange of cell cultures, such as stricter operation manuals and better super clean benches. The scientists can carry out a genetic test before starting their research to prevent mistaking cells, but that takes time and money.

 "The scientists I spoke to said that was the biggest problem. And to solve that problem, you either have to reduce the pressure to publish or require all researchers to carry out a genetic test before working with the cells," said Halffman.

 "It's not our intention to damage anyone's reputation with this publication. It's about the overarching problem: what are we going to do about the mistakes that have been made? That's all we want to determine. One solution would be to put a disclaimer on all 30,000 publications explaining that they report on the wrong cell line. It would then be up to readers to decide whether it's a problem or not, because sometimes it really doesn't matter. Basically, we want to caution people to be careful with the interpretation of results. Then again, labelling problematic papers also takes time and money," said Halffman and Horbach.

How to see if you have made mistakes

If you have questions about the cells you are using, you can check the Version 8.0 Register of Misidentified Cell Lines launched in December 2016 by ICLAC (International Cell Line Authentication Committee) on: http://iclac.org/databases/cross-contaminations/, which has registered 488 cell lines, and see if the ones you are using are listed there; or you can carry out a genetic test to identify the cells you are not certain about.

By Biodiscover.com