Hep G2

Hep G2 Cells

Hep G2 is a human liver carcinoma cell line.

Technical reference

ATCC No. HB-8065 Hep G2 (Hepatocellular carcinoma, human)
Hep G2 is a perpetual cell line which was derived from the liver tissue of a 15-year-old Caucasian American male with a well-differentiated hepatocellular carcinoma. These cells are epithelial in morphology, have a modal chromosome number of 55, and are not tumorigenic in nude mice.[1] The cells secrete a variety of major plasma proteins, e.g., albumin, transferrin, and the acute-phase proteins fibrinogen, alpha 2-macroglobulin, alpha 1-antitrypsin, transferrin, and plasminogen. They have been grown successfully in large-scale cultivation systems. Hepatitis B virus surface antigens have not been detected. HepG2 will respond to stimulation with human growth hormone.

HepG2 cells are a suitable in vitro model system for the study of polarized human hepatocytes. (Another well-characterized polarized hepatocyte cell line is the rat hepatoma-derived hybrid cell line WIF-B[2]). With the proper culture conditions, HepG2 cells display robust morphological and functional differentiation with a controllable formation of apical and basolateral cell surface domains (van IJzendoorn et al., 1997; 2000, etc.) that resemble the bile canalicular (BC) and sinusoidal domains, respectively, in vivo.

Because of their high degree of morphological and functional differentiation in vitro, HepG2 cells are a suitable model to study the intracellular trafficking and dynamics of bile canalicular and sinusoidal membrane proteins and lipids in human hepatocytes in vitro. This can be important for the study of human liver diseases that are caused by an incorrect subcellular distribution of cell surface proteins, e.g., hepatocanalicular transport defects such as Dubin-Johnson Syndrome and progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis (PFIC), and familial hypercholesterolemia. HepG2 cells and their derivatives are also used as a model system for studies of liver metabolism and toxicity of xenobiotics , the detection of environmental and dietary cytotoxic and genotoxic (and thus cytoprotective, anti-genotoxic, and cogenotoxic) agents,[3] understanding hepatocarcinogenesis , and for drug targeting studies . HepG2 cells are also employed in trials with bio-artificial liver devices .

External links

References

  1. ↑ Hep G2, American Type Culture Collection
  2. ↑ Ihrke, G; Neufeld, EB; Meads, T et al. (1993). "WIF-B cells: an in vitro model for studies of hepatocyte polarity". Journal of Cell Biology 123 (6): 1761–1775. doi:10.1083/jcb.123.6.1761. PMC 2290861. PMID 7506266.
  3. ↑ Mersch-Sundermann, V.; Knasmüller, S.; Wu, X. J.; Darroudi, F.; Kassie, F. (2004). "Use of a human-derived liver cell line for the detection of cytoprotective, antigenotoxic and cogenotoxic agents". Toxicology 198 (1–3): 329–340. doi:10.1016/j.tox.2004.02.009. PMID 15138059.