Usually as a non tumor control cell line IMR-90 should be used, but can I use IMR-90 tert cells as non-tumor control cell line? Can anyone help?
In theory, the introduction of telomerase should "solely" confere immortality to the cell line, whereas tumoral cell lines are fully transformed. Thus, IMR-90 TERT fibroblasts should be considered as non tumoral cell line. An other possibility would be to use IMR-90 without telomerase (the wild type cell line), but at the lowest passage possible to prevent cellular senescence.
The short answer is Yes. However, depending upon the passage levels and cell culture conditions, these cells can behave very differently in certain experimental conditions. Therefore, if you indicate what you plan to do with these cells as a "control" I may be able to address the question more appropriately.
Thank you Stefano Marchesi and Divaker Choubey.
I intend to check the expression of a gene in a fibrosarcoma cell line (HT1080). To show that the gene is deregulated in cancerous conditions I have to check its expression against normal fibroblast cell line like IMR-90. But these IMR-90 cells are not growing properly and so I intent to use IMR-90 tert in place of IMR-90.
H-Tert immortalized human fibroblasts, including the IMR-90, should be OK for your purpose. However, please keep in mind that certain h-tert immortalized cell lines are shown to produce growth factors that can alter gene expression. If it is known that your gene of interest is regulated by a growth factor, you would need an additional "normal" control.
My gene of interest in regulated by Rb/E2F...but there can be chances of it being indirectly regulated by a growth factor.
Thank you your answer sir. I will keep this in mind before using it as control.
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