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Reproducibility: changing the policies and culture of cell line authentication

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Quality control of cell lines used in biomedical research is essential to ensure reproducibility. Although cell line authentication has been widely recommended for many years, misidentification, including cross-contamination, remains a serious problem. We outline a multi-stakeholder, incremental approach and policy-related recommendations to facilitate change in the culture of cell line authentication.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Global Biological Standards Institute staff for support during the preparation of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Global Biological Standards Institute, Washington, DC, USA

    Leonard P Freedman & Mark C Gibson

  2. Hollings Cancer Center, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, USA

    Stephen P Ethier

  3. Prostate Cancer Foundation, Milken Institute, Santa Monica, California, USA

    Howard R Soule

  4. Department of Discovery Oncology, Genentech Inc., South San Francisco, California, USA

    Richard M Neve

  5. ATCC, Manassas, Virginia, USA

    Yvonne A Reid

Authors
  1. Leonard P Freedman
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  2. Mark C Gibson
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  3. Stephen P Ethier
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  4. Howard R Soule
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  6. Yvonne A Reid
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Correspondence to Leonard P Freedman.

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Freedman, L., Gibson, M., Ethier, S. et al. Reproducibility: changing the policies and culture of cell line authentication. Nat Methods 12, 493–497 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.3403

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