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Immortalization of normal liver functions in cell culture: Rat hepatocyte‐hepatoma cell hybrids expressing ornithine carbamoyltransferase activity
Author(s) -
Widman Lawrence E.,
Golden Jonathan J.,
Chasin Lawrence A.
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
journal of cellular physiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.529
H-Index - 174
eISSN - 1097-4652
pISSN - 0021-9541
DOI - 10.1002/jcp.1041000302
Subject(s) - ornithine carbamoyltransferase , hepatocyte , ornithine aminotransferase , cell , microbiology and biotechnology , cell culture , biology , ornithine , chemistry , biochemistry , genetics , in vitro , amino acid , arginine
Normal rat hepatocytes have been fused with highly differentiated rat hepatoma cells. Some of the hybrids express a physiologically significant level of activity of the urea cycle enzyme ornithine carbamoyltransferase (OCT), a liver‐specific function not found in the hepatoma cells. These hybrids have 10% of the adult rat liver OCT specific activity, incorporate 3 H‐ornithine into protein arginine, and can be selectively grown in arginine‐free medium supplemented with ornithine. Somatic cell hybridization of normal differentiated cells with highly differentiated neoplastic cells of the same tissue type may be useful as a general method for obtaining permanent cell lines with new tissue‐specific phenotypes.