Hyderabad: A total of 32,755 publications on biomedical research involving cells were based on contaminated or wrongly mixed cells, according to International Cell Line Authentication Committee (ICLAC) Database of cross-contaminated or misidentified cell lines published in PLOS One.
This data includes primary literature dating back to 1945. Pig cells, for example, were mislabelled as horse cells and so on, resulting in possibly incorrect outcomes.
A senior biomedical scientist in the city explained, “The problem is being widely seen because of the significant amount of research that is being done to understand cancer cells. In research papers, results for lung cancer cells have turned out to be that of liver carcinoma. This is a huge error.
“In some places it was found that where human cell lines were being studied, the cells turned out to be those of mice when they were studied by another team. These errors are rendering the results meaningless,” the scientist said.
Scientists freeze cells of monkeys, mouse, pigs, horses and rats for experimentation. In the international community it has been found that these cells have been swapped from time to time when moving from one laboratory to another.
This has led to the wrong cells being used for the research, according to PLOS One, a multidisciplinary open access journal
The International Cell Line Authentication Committee (ICLAC) has found that 488 or 0.6 per cent of the 80,000 cell lines are suspected to be misidentified or contaminated.
The case studies conducted by ICLAC have found that the problem is more severe in the last one decade and needs to be addressed with the right action since huge grants are provided for research.
If the base of the cell is wrong, misidentified, or wrongly labelled then the observations, results and future use in medical treatment or further research gets hampered.
In some cases it was found that where human cell lines were being studied, the cells turned out to be those of mice when they were studied by another team. These errors are rendering the results meaningless, a scientist said.
Scientists freeze cells of monkeys, mouse, pigs, horses and rats for experimentation. These cells were swapped while being moved between laboratories.
Early contamination is found as early as 1945 and in 2016 there were 40,000 papers which were published whose base was from the primary literature. These are now being viewed critically as the cell lines have been labelled as contaminated.
