Dear Soumen,

Since PC-3 is a STAT3-null cell line, you can use this cell line to exclude the effect of endogenous STAT3 with transient expression. To analyze the endogenous STAT3 function by knockdown approach, you can also use other cell lines with elevated STAT3 activity (i.g. phospho-STAT3 (Y705)), several breast cancer cell lines (including HS578T, MDA-MB-468, and BT549) will be helpful. All these cell lines have detectable phospho-STAT3 (Y705) compared to others such as MCF7 and T47D.

PC-3 is known as a STAT3-null cell.

Ref: Yuan ZL, Guan YJ, Chatterjee D, Chin YE. Stat3 dimerization regulated by reversible acetylation of a single lysine residue. Science 2005; 307:269-273.

Dear Soumen,

As Dr. Yi wrote, the PC-3 cell line is a null cell line for Stat3 and should be perfect for your study. Nevertheless, you should decide which cell line to use depending on the precise goals you want to reach. Indeed, Stat3 targets are generally tissue-specific; thus, it is very important to know what precisely you are planning to investigate.

Thank you. I wish to study the effect of some drugs on STAT3 regulated mitochondrial behavior, specially respiration. So do you think PC3 cells will be good for this type of study?

Dear Soumen,

I believe that the PC3 cell line should betotally fine for your studies. Since you are looking for a large process (mitochondrial respiration), the issue regarding tissue specific targets does not apply to your investigation. You can eventually further substantiate your data by transfecting a dominant negative form of Stat3 in cells overexpressing Stat3 (plasmids available at www.addgene.com). Please do not hesitate to contact me for additional information.

Good luck with the experiments! ;-)

Thank you for your replies.

Dear Soumen,

Since PC-3 is a STAT3-null cell line, you can use this cell line to exclude the effect of endogenous STAT3 with transient expression. To analyze the endogenous STAT3 function by knockdown approach, you can also use other cell lines with elevated STAT3 activity (i.g. phospho-STAT3 (Y705)), several breast cancer cell lines (including HS578T, MDA-MB-468, and BT549) will be helpful. All these cell lines have detectable phospho-STAT3 (Y705) compared to others such as MCF7 and T47D.

Dear All,

I'd like to comment on this. To say that PC-3 is a STAT3-null cell line may be misleading as it seems that ATCC may provide two branches of them, the american one with a chromosome 17 partially deleted region and the european one without this deletion (Kamradt et al, Plos One 2007). I'm saying that as I find STAT3 in my PC-3 cells (straight from ATCC) and I was recently told at a meeting that this was impossible ... Same for DU-145 by the way ...

Best regards

Thierry Capiod

Dear Soumen,

You can use human colon cancer cell line "LS174T" which has negligible basal stat3 that get activated upon stimulation with certain cytokines. As others mentioned, you also make your own stat3 reporter cells using LS174T.

With best