Abstract
Continuous cell lines are widely used, but can result in invalid, irreproducible research data. Cell line misidentification is a common problem that can be detected by authentication testing; however, misidentified cell lines continue to be used in publications. Here we explore the impact of one misidentified cell line, KB (HeLa), on the scientific literature. We identified 574 articles between 2000 and 2014 that provided an incorrect attribution for KB, in accordance with its false identity as oral epidermoid carcinoma, but only 57 articles that provided a correct attribution for KB, as HeLa or cervical adenocarcinoma. Statistical analysis of 57 correct and 171 incorrect articles showed that the number of citations to these articles increased over time. Content analysis of 200 citing articles showed there was a tendency to describe the cell line in accordance with the description in the cited paper. Analysis of journal impact factor showed no significant difference between correct and incorrect groups. Articles using KB or citing that usage were most frequently published in the subject areas of pharmacology, pharmacy, oncology, and medicinal chemistry. These findings are important for science policy and support the need for journals to require authentication testing as a condition of publication. Cancer Res; 77(11); 2784-8. ©2017 AACR.
Highlights
Continuous cell lines are widely used, but can result in invalid, irreproducible research data
Cross-contamination results in misidentified or false cell lines, which no longer correspond to the original donor, but instead come from a different donor or species. This common cell culture problem affects the validity of cell lines as cancer models [4], even if a cell line is widely used, it may not be a valid model for the tumor type from which it was reportedly established
Assessing the impact of cell line misidentification in the scientific literature Review of the scientific literature has uncovered more than 400 misidentified cell lines
Summary
Continuous cell lines are widely used, but can result in invalid, irreproducible research data. Using KB as a model, we explored the impact of misidentified cell lines on the scientific literature by generating curated reference datasets to determine how many articles refer to KB correctly and incorrectly and how they are cited. This approach generated a total of 631 journal articles that used KB cells in the period 2000–2014, separated into "Correct" and "Incorrect" reference datasets for further analysis.
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