Passage determines toxicity and neuronal markers expression in PC12 cells with altered phenotype

PC12 cells, a catecholaminergic cell line widely used in neurotoxicology, developed variants that have lost some of their characteristic features such as response to NGF and controlled cell division. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the responses obtained between two passages (early and late) of PC12 cells with altered phenotype in viability, percentage of cells in synthesis phase and expression of tyrosine hydroxylase. We hypothesized that being unaware of working with a cell line bearing an altered phenotype could be responsible for the high variability reported in viability assays in the scientific literature. We used sodium arsenite (5-1000 μg L-1), lead acetate (5-1000 μg dL-1), 3-nitropropionic acid (100-5000 μM) and 6-hydroxydopamine (50-300 μM) for viability assays. The results showed that PC12 cells with altered phenotype do not respond uniformly to a variety of stimuli, therefore the requirement to ascertain the true identity of cell lines before testing hypothesis is an important issue to be addressed. © 2013 The Royal Society of Chemistry.

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