Multiple approaches revealed ImKC cells as a RAW 264.7 derivative rather than a Kupffer cell line

Immortalized cell lines function as invaluable tools in life science and preclinical studies. Poor laboratory practices can lead to cell line misidentification, cross-contamination, and mislabelling, resulting in invalid, misleading, and unrepeatable results. The issue of nonhuman-derived cell misidentification was once discovered timely, but it received less attention than the misidentification of human cells. Consequently, problematic murine cell lines still appear frequently in the literature. For instance, ImKC cells have been applied as a mouse Kupffer cell line in the last decade. In this report, we revealed that the ImKC cell line was a RAW 264.7 derivative through STR analysis, and further determined that it was not an SV40-transformed cell line by PCR and western blotting assays. Moreover, we outlined the relevant publications using the ImKC cell line. This study aims to prevent further researchers from employing the problematic cell line in their studies.