Talk:HEK 293 cells

HEK vs. HEK 293

I'm all but certain that 'HEK' always means 'HEK 293'. I've never heard of any other kind of HEK cell line, and although it's technically possible to grow new primary cultures of human embryonic kidneys, it's not the kind of thing you'd do if you could possibly avoid it (human embryonic kidneys are difficult to come by, the paperwork's a nightmare, and epithelia are a bugger to grow anyway!).

If i'm wrong, we'll need to split the definitions of HEK and HEK 293. Everything on this page is about HEK 293s.

-- Tom Anderson 2006-03-11

As implied above, HEK can be used to mean any human embryonic kidney cell. All references cited in this article call them as HEK-293 or just 293 cells, not as HEK cells. Also, as someone using these cells regularly, I usually hear 293 cells in lab usage, with the assumption that their full name is HEK 293. Moreover, Google reports 31,000 uses of "HEK cell", while there are 590,000 uses of "HEK 293 cell" as of August 2013.

Also, not being able to grow primary human embryonic kidney (HEK) cells easily is not a reason to deny them their names. And they exist, and are clearly not 293 cells. Given the common usage attested by the references within this article, and Google usage, moving of this article to HEK 293 would be the reasonable action here. Enozkan (talk) 20:56, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

I redirected the 293 cell page (currently describing HEK 293 cells in little detail) to the HEK cell page. They are both referencing the same cell line.

There are also variants of HEK 293 cells which are transformed like HEK 293 T cells which are more adherent And the picture of starved HEK cells is not good, they rather look like dead cells. - Prajbio

Photo

The HEK cell photo is terrible. Looks nothing like properly adherent HEK293 cells. It misleads about the general morphology of HEK cells. AndrewHires (talk) 14:29, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with this - the picture is not representative of the "normal" appearance of HEK cells in culture. --Kristina —Preceding unsigned comment added by Schimmk2 (talk • contribs) 21:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

"transformation" link

Shouldn't the "transformation" link got to "malignant transformation"? Now it goes to a page talking about putting DNA i E. coli.Eaberry (talk) 18:59, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

You're correct, that link directs to the wrong transformation- in bacteria, transformation means adding DNA into cells, but for mammalian cells, transformation means to immortalize. malignant or not is a separate issue for cancerous growths also, please, someone replace that photo, those are some sick 293's-BDP — Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.41.193.145 (talk) 22:58, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Kind of agree, they could mean that the cells were immortalized (transformed in the eukaryotic sense) by adding sheared viral DNA, or it could mean that the cells were caused to take up sheared viral DNA (transformed in the bacterial sense), either meaning makes sense, though the second makes marginally more sense in context, in which case it should be transfected rather than transformed. As no one has actually bothered to change this in seven years, even though there is no dissent on the matter, I shall change it now. Alun (talk) 07:18, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Origins

The section on Origins of HEK 293 Cells currently has this info, with no source:

The human embryonic kidney cells were obtained from a previously healthy aborted (whether naturally or induced is unknown) fetus …

Here are some citable sources related to that statement, which hopefully someone can integrate into the article:

Van der Eb’s own statement, transcribed from a 2001 meeting, http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/01/transcripts/3750t1_01.pdf, p. 81:

So the kidney material, the fetal kidney material was as follows. The kidney of the fetus was, with an unknown family history, was obtained in 1972 probably. The precise date is not known anymore. The fetus, as far as I can remember was completely normal. Nothing was wrong. The reasons for the abortion were unknown to me. I probably knew it at the time, but it got lost, all this information.

A paper by one Dr. Alvin Wong, who claims to have communicated with Van der Eb via email in 2003, http://pubget.com/paper/17091554, p. 475:

For the sake of the consciences of the people who work with HEK 293, I wrote to Dr. van der Eb at Leiden University, who confirmed that the records pertaining to the origins of HEK 293 were indeed lost, consistent with his statement to the FDA (e-mail message, October 27, 2003).

Since Dr. van der Eb does admit to working with tissue from induced abortions, even if there may have been one or more occasions of working with tissue from spontaneous abortions, it seems more likely that the tissue would be from an induced abortion. The convenience of getting tissue from routine, elective abortions compared to waiting for an unforeseen miscarriage supports this likelihood.

John lindgren (talk) 20:51, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Note: Both links are not working anymore, leaving this basically without source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:638:60E:1E02:7038:8B17:4944:24D2 (talk) 20:34, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Start talk for 131.255.106.171 (talk) 16:53, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

They do have sources, there's the WayBack machine registry of both links: https://web.archive.org/web/20170516050447/https://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/01/transcripts/3750t1_01.pdf and https://web.archive.org/web/20160303235044/http://pubget.com/paper/17091554 which is anyway a link to a paper, same as https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17091554/ in which Alvin Wong weights in and speculates that since van der Eb had used induced abortions material in other stem cells lines then this could be assumed to be an induced one, even tho he does not remember exactly if the source for HEK 293 was from induced or natural (miscarriage). IMO, the encyclopedic value comes from Van der Eb's original declaration against the FDA where he says he can't recall and there's not even an exact date. He lost the records and has said so before. There's no intent on covering up the source since he has acknowledged in the past when used induced fetus like in PER.C6 as stated by him in page 91 of the same FDA transcript found in the WayBack Machine from Archive.

End talk for 131.255.106.171 (talk) 16:53, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

User:Turtinfan (talk) 13:24, 7 Januari 2020 (UTC)

So there are numerous mentions that the cause of abortion is not known, but the source (https://web.archive.org/web/20170516050447/https://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/01/transcripts/3750t1_01.pdf) says on page 99 line 12-15:

The father was not known, not to the hospital anymore, what was written down, and unknown father, and that was, in fact, the reason why the abortion was requested.

So it seems the reason for the abortion was the fact that te father was unknown. This is significant because this would indicate it was an illegal abortion, because abortion was legalised in 1984 in the Netherlands. There was, however, a toleration policy at that time in the Netherlands. This would explain why a hospital would still perform the abortion even tough it was technically illegal.

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:HEK 293 cells/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

what's this 2xpbs transfection method that is supposed to work better than HBS? I can't find any clue when I google it... Does anybody have a reference for that?

Substituted at 01:01, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Use by Senomyx to produce taste receptors to test new artificial flavorings

I just got done arguing with a bunch of demented conspiracy theorists propagating the insane belief that major food and drink companies harvest aborted babies en masse for use in flavoring their products. I was slightly surprised that this article didn't talk about the actual facts that inspired this belief, which is apparently quite popular in certain circles. I don't have time to do so at the moment, but I think it'd be good in the Applications section for someone to mention that Senomyx uses HEK 293 cells to produce taste receptors that are used to automate first-round testing of new artificial flavoring candidates. Ideally it should make it clear to the average reader that these cells are used to test chemical flavorings, not used as flavorings themselves. Snopes has a pretty good article on this. --Dan Harkless (talk) 16:58, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Agree!

I agree that this kind of additional information, sensitively presented, would be valuable. As it happens, I came to this page today following up on this exact conspiracy theory. I lack the technical knowledge to create this content myself, but if anyone wants to take on that task they'd be doing everyone a favour. Presentation might be challenging, because the existing content is very technical, and any reference to the "flavourings from aborted fetuses" theory will need to be understandable for the lay person. Rob Burbidge (talk) 13:05, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

+1

I got into arguments with some otherwise reasonable people about this conspiracy theory and I agree that this should be pointed out in the ethical issues: there are no fetuses in your chips, but an unfortunate fetus in the '70s has been cloned many times and its line is now used to screen out artificial flavors. Christian.Mercat (talk) 15:36, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Elective abortion or miscarriage

Since the records about the origin of the HEK-cells got lost, there is some discussion about whether the original abortion was elective or spontaneous (a miscarriage). In the 2001 FDA meeting,[1] Alex van der Eb states that "nothing was wrong" with the fetus, although he cannot remember the "reasons for the abortion". These wordings seem to presuppose an elective abortion.

The possibility of a miscarriage is supported by an opinion piece in Public Discourse, citing a private e-mail from Frank Graham, who was working in der Eb's lab. He can't remember, he was not involved in the abortion and according to him it might have been either.

An ethical analysis in NCBQ concludes that although we can't know for sure, circumstantial evidence makes it extremely probable that the cell line did in fact originate from an elective abortion.

Shouldn't we find a phrasing that acknowledges the uncertainty but without presenting miscarriage as an equally likely possibility? St.nerol (talk) 10:23, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

From the sources, it's just not known. In any case, whatever Wikipedia has needs to be supported by relevant, reliable sources. I have made a new "Ethics" section for Wong's arguments. Alexbrn (talk) 12:50, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I support the changes, and just made some minor changes in language.

What would you say about moving the Ethics-section up a bit? I don't know exactly what is the most natural order, but I suspect that more people would like to read it before the list of variants or proteins, which seem to be of more technical interest. The Applications-section should probably also come early. –St.nerol (talk) 14:28, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

MOS:MED suggests it as a last section for medical specialties. Alexbrn (talk) 14:31, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

When was the cell line established - 1973 or 1977 ?

I am struggling with the date.

So my questions is whether this cell line was established in 1973, and this was then published in 1977.

Or were only the kidney cells obtained in 1973, and thereafter, maybe 1977, the cell line was established (and published)?

The literature (i. e. doi:10.1038/ncomms5767) simply states that the cells (!) were derived in 1973 from the kidney, but that does not necessarily mean that also the cell line was established in that year. However, the article here states this, but without a source (which could be doi:10.1038/ncomms5767).--Julius Senegal (talk) 19:08, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

I guess one confusion by the original threadstarter was the discrepancy between those 4 years. They were cultured for 4 years probably, perhaps similar to HeLa. Although I think the current HeLa cells may be distinct to the original one due to various changes. The HeLa article was published, I think, quite quickly after the isolation, so those 4 years difference is a bit confusing indeed. The article could perhaps explain that delay. 2A02:8388:1641:5500:8207:8CE:DF2:AB90 (talk) 09:13, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Plasmid used

The article currently has this: "The transfection used to create 293T (involving plasmid pRSV-1609)" so I assume the SV40 change came via that plasmid. Would it be possible to mention this more clearly in the article? Perhaps someone could mention why pRSV-1609 is used specifically? I assume it is due to SV40 T but it would be better if the article could determine this as-is, ideally with a reference or one additional reference to the pRSV-1609. Before I visited the article I thought the SV40 T change came by a virus that accidentally infected the cell culture or something, but after reading the article it seems as if this came by human intervention, so pRSV-1609 must have been designed I assume. 2A02:8388:1641:5500:8207:8CE:DF2:AB90 (talk) 09:11, 9 December 2022 (UTC)