HepG2 – Human Liver Cancer Cell Line

HepG2 cells derived from a human hepatocellular carcinoma line (We et al., 2006). Hepatoblastoma (HB) or hepatocellular carcinoma is an embryonal malignancy of hepatocellular origin and the most common primary liver tumor of childhood, usually presenting in the first year of life. I have described mcf-7, human breast cancer cell line before.

HepG2 cell line has been the subject of significant confusion for almost 30 years (Dolores et al., 2009). It has been found to express a wide variety of liver-specific metabolic functions (Norman et al., 1992). Therefore, HepG2 has been widely used in varieties of fields like liver metabolism, development, oncogenesis and hepatoxicity at that time in cancer research (Dolores et al., 2009).

HepG2 cell line has been introduced since 1979 (Norman et al., 1992). Until now, there are more than nine thousands HepG2 references can be found in the scientific literature (Dolores et al., 2009). HepG2 cell line is known to be capable of producing many plasma proteins for which there are antisera commercially available (Liu et al., 1985).

This cell line has been proved to be an useful model of the human liver cell as there is high proportion of liver-specific proteins identified in the medium. The metabolic pathways that have been studied appear to simulate the behaviour of normal hepatocytes. Thus, those studies encourage a wider application of this HepG2 cell line to biologic problems that relate specifically to the role of the liver (Norman et al., 1992).

Reference:

Dolores L-T, Sau W. C., Milton J. F. & Barbara B. K. HepG2 is a        Hepatoblastoma-derived Cell Line. Oncology Stat, 1512 – 1515 (2009).

Liu M-C, Yu S., Jose Sy, Colvin M. R. & Fritz L. Tyrosine Sulfation of Proteins      from the Human Hepatoma Cell Line HepG2. Proc Natl Acad Sci 82      (21), 7160 – 7164 (1985).

Norman B. J. HepG2 Cells As a Resource for Metabolic Studies: Lipoprotein,       Choresterol, and Bile Acids. The FASEB Journal 4, 161 – 168 (1992).

HepG2 – Human Liver Cancer Cell Line is a post from: Cytogenetics and Cancer Research