Authentication

Cell and microbial authentication is of the utmost importance; skipping the authentication step can lead to lost time and money and retractions of publication as cross-contamination or misidentification has invalidated the data that that research is built upon. For example, it’s thought that 18-36% of cell lines used in scientific research are either misidentified, duplicated, or cross-contaminated, making research results invalid. In addition, the financial cost of invalid research caused by misidentified cell lines has been estimated to exceed $50 billion. The cost of ignoring authentication is more than monetary, as over 32,000 scientific articles have based their results on misidentified cell lines. To address this problem, biomaterial validation is now required by the National Institutes of Health for grant funding and by a number of scientific journals. Additionally, the FDA requires validation of all materials included in investigational new drug (IND) applications.

Several tests for authenticating cell lines have been established as means of combatting the issues of misidentification and cross contamination. For intraspecies contamination of human or mouse cells, short tandem repeat profiling services are offered. By contrast, cytochrome oxidase 1 (CO1) barcoding can be used to identify interspecies contamination. Mycoplasma contamination, which is rampant and difficult to detect, can be detected using direct and indirect culturing methods and a PCR-based method. Additionally, As a result of implementing STR profiling as part of ATCC routine authentication procedures, ATCC discovered that some human cell lines are not as originally reported by the depositor. These cell lines were deposited many years before such procedure was available. A complete list of misidentified/reclassified cell lines can be found here.

Authentication of microbial research materials is just as important to the validity of research is as the authentication of eukaryotic cells. While recent technological advancements have enabled the generation of vast amounts of whole-genome sequencing data, publicly available reference genomes of research- and control-grade microbes often lack quality, completeness, authenticity, accuracy, and traceability. The reliability of these data is further called into question as they may have been generated using untraceable cultures and older methodologies. To address this unmet need, ATCC provides reference-quality whole-genome sequences that are derived from authenticated ATCC materials.