Journal of Biotechnology & Biomaterials
Open Access

Review Article

Controlled Expansion of Mammalian Cell Populations by Reversible Immortalization

¹Department of Gastroenterological Surgery, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama 700-8558, Japan

²Okayama Saidaiji Hospital, Okayama 704-8192, Japan

Corresponding Authors:

Hirofumi Noguchi
Department of Gastroenterological Surgery
Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine
Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences 2-5-1 Shikata-cho
Okayama 700-8558, Japan
Tel: +81-86-235-7257
Fax: +81-86-221-8775
E-mail: noguch-h@cc.okayama-u.ac.jp, noguchih2006@yahoo.co.jp

Naoya Kobayashi
Okayama Saidaiji Hospital, Okayama 704-8192, Japan
E-mail: n-kobayashi@saidaiji-hp.or.jp

Received date: April 25, 2013; Accepted date: May 15, 2013; Published date: May 20, 2013

Citation: Noguchi H, Kobayashi N (2013) Controlled Expansion of Mammalian Cell Populations by Reversible Immortalization. J Biotechnol Biomater 3:158. doi:10.4172/2155-952X.1000158

Copyright: © 2013 Noguchi H, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

In 1996, reversible immortalization using SV40 large T antigens and the Cre/LoxP system was successfully achieved with primary human fibroblasts. The concept of reversible immortalization involves introducing an immortalizing agent, SV40 large T antigens, into primary cells, expanding the cells in the culture, and finally, efficiently removing the immortalizing agent using Cre/LoxP site-specific recombination. The resulting cell population is essentially identical to the initial primary cells, but greatly increased in number. Since this report, reversible immortalization has been realized with hepatocytes, pancreatic β-cells, hepatic stellate cells, endothelial cells, renal epithelial cells and myogenic cells. This method facilitates the study of cell transplantation as well as cell differentiation, the cell cycle and senescence, by allowing one to control cell proliferation.

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