Can anyone share their experience regarding the acquisition or gifting of cell lines mentioned in a Nature article? Specifically, I am interested in knowing if there are any journal-specific policies involved.
The cell line in question contains a CRISPR-mediated stably expressing protein labeled with GFP, and its published in the Nature journal. I intend to use this cell line for my own experiment. Naturally, I am willing to acknowledge or provide authorship as appropriate. However, I would like to know if it is possible to obtain this cell line directly from the PIs lab and what the relevant policies are of nature journals if I get them from PI lab (I understand I will refer the article).
Has anyone ever received or gifted cell lines before? I am aware that exchanging plasmids is a common occurrence, but I have never personally obtained cell lines in this manner.
I appreciate any information you can provide.
Thank you in advance.
https://www.nature.com/natmachintell/editorial-policies/reporting-standards#availability-of-materials
Basically, if you're publishing in any Nature journal you're obligated to make cell lines available to other qualified researchers (either via public repository or by sending them yourself), either for free or for a "reasonable" handling cost, for non-profit entities, anyway. There might be some extra hoops to jump through if the PI is from a non-profit institution / university and you're trying to acquire them at a for profit company. Also, a lot of fluorescent proteins are patented by private companies, so any use of them by for-profit entities will probably require extra licensing agreements with those companies, even if the cell line itself was created by a non-profit institution.
I think your experience with acquiring said cell line is going to be more related to the specific parties and individual PI involved than the journal publisher.
Alexandra Johnson Thank you. Yes I need for academic non profit research work purpose with publication purpose so I believe I may directly inquire the PI and if they can send us a T25 flask with this particular cell line. Thank you again.
Usually, your institution needs to sign a material transfer agreement (MTA).
Shipping vital cells in a T25 flask is not a good idea, because the flask must be filled-up with medium to avoid cell damage by air bubbles and the cells need to be kept at an appropriate temperature. If the shipment takes some days, upon arrival the cells might be in a poor condition or even dead. Cell lines are usually shipped vitally frozen on dry ice.
Thank you Sabine Strehl for the pointer. Good info, I agree frozen vial would be better option.