Enzyme polymorphisms as genetic signatures in human cell cultures.

The electrophoretic resolution of seven relatively polymorphic human gene-enzyme systems expressed in tissue culture cells can be used as a sensitive genetic monitor for intraspecific cell contamination. An identical genotype at each of the same allozyme loci provides a 95% (or greater) confindence estimate of the identity of two cultured lines, on the basis of the allelic frequencies of the seven enzyme loci in natural populations and in populations of independently derived cultured cells. Of 27 commonly used human cell lines examined, only one of 351 pairwise comparisons proved genetically indistinguishable.