SNU cell lines and their application for cancer research

The cellular and molecular characteristics of SNU human cancer cell lines established in Korean are summarized according to the genetic and epigenetic alterations and functional analysis, etc. We have characterized and reported 89 different cell lines since 1987. These cell lines have been distributed to biomedical researchers through the KCLB (Korean Cell Lines Bank). Some cell lines have several distinguishing characteristics; i) two hepatocellular cell lines (SNU-354 and -368) expressing the MDR1 gene and hepatitis B virus, ii) Gastric carcinoma cell lines with mutations in TGF-beta type II receptor gene, iii) uterine cervical carcinoma cell line (SNU-1000) having intact episomal HPV-16, and iv) ovarian carcinoma cell line (SNU-251) have a nonsense mutation of codon 1815 in exon 23 of the BRCA1 gene. The distributed SNU cell lines have proven to be of value in various scientific research fields.