Abstract
Immortalized kidney cell lines are widely used in basic and applied research such as cell permeability tests and drug screening. Although many cell lines have been established from kidney tissues, the immortalization process has not been clarified in these cell lines. In this study, we analyzed the phenotypic changes that occurred during the immortalization of kidney cells derived from Chinese hamster tissue in terms of karyotype and gene expression profiles. In the newly established cell line, designated as CHK-Q, gene expression profiles at each stage of the immortalization process and during the adaptation to serum-free conditions were analyzed by DNA microarray. Renal stem cell markers CD24 and CD133 were expressed in CHK-Q cells, suggesting that CHK-Q cells were transformed from renal stem cells. Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis to identify the pathways of upregulated and downregulated genes revealed that the immortalization of CHK-Q cells was associated with increased fluctuations in the expression of specific proto-oncogenes. Karyotype analysis of spontaneously immortalized CHK-Q cells indicated that CHK-Q chromosomes had a typical modal number of 23 but possessed slight chromosomal abnormalities. In this study, we investigated the mechanism of cell environmental adaptation by analyzing gene expression behavior during the immortalization process and serum-free adaptation. CHK-Q cells are applicable to the fields of biotechnology and biomedical science by utilizing their characteristics as kidney-derived cells.