What a cell line purchase has to carry before the first experiment, and how the gastrointestinal panels are actually chosen: why laboratories that purchase cell lines from a colleague rather than a repository lose the provenance that makes a result publishable, what cell line services a repository provides that a freezer box does not, and how a colorectal panel built from a ct26 cell line, a dld-1 cell line, an ht-29 cell line, a lovo cell line, an rko cell line, an sw48 cell line and the sw480 cell line whose sw480 cells are the parental of a matched pair differs from a pancreatic panel of a bxpc3 cell line whose bxpc3 cells are widely shared and a panc 1 cell line also written panc-1 cell line, or a gastric and hepatic set of an mkn45 cell line, an ags cell line whose ags cells are the reference for one subtype, huh 7 cells and a tt cell line

What an order has to establish

1. Provenance you can cite. A repository line has a catalogue identifier, a documented origin and a published characterisation, and that identifier is what a methods section cites. A line received informally has none of those, and reconstructing them later is more expensive than buying the line was.
2. Authentication, on arrival and on a schedule. Short tandem repeat profiling confirms a human line is what it claims to be, against the repository's reference profile. Do it when the line arrives, before a bank is made, and periodically afterwards. Misidentified lines are common enough in the literature that funders and journals now ask for the evidence.
3. Mycoplasma status, tested rather than assumed. Mycoplasma contamination is invisible, common, and changes cell behaviour in ways that look like biology. Test on arrival, quarantine until the result is known, and test the bank before it is used. A line that enters a shared incubator untested puts every other line in it at risk.
4. A bank made early, at a low passage. Expand and freeze a master and a working bank as soon as the line is authenticated and clean. Everything afterwards comes from the working bank at a recorded passage, which is what makes an experiment two years later comparable with one today.
5. Terms of use, read before the order. Lines carry conditions: research use only, restrictions on transfer to third parties, and sometimes obligations if the work becomes commercial. Read them at purchase rather than at the point a collaboration or a licence is being negotiated.

Choosing a panel rather than a favourite line

A single line is one genotype in one culture-adapted state, and a result in it is a result about it. Conclusions that are meant to apply to a disease need several lines spanning the molecular subtypes that matter, chosen from what is known about each rather than from what is already in the freezer.

In colorectal work, for instance, the useful spread covers the mismatch repair status and the common driver mutations rather than simply three lines that grow well. Write down which property each line in the panel represents, and the panel becomes an argument rather than a convenience.

Matched pairs and isogenic sets

Some of the most informative lines come in pairs derived from the same patient, or in isogenic sets where a single gene has been altered against an otherwise identical background. They let a difference be attributed to one variable rather than to everything that differs between two unrelated lines.

They also have to be kept as a set: if one member drifts in passage or is replaced from a different source, the comparison quietly stops being controlled. Bank both members at the same time, from the same order, and record them together.

Lines that are not what their name suggests

Several widely used lines have been shown to be cross-contaminated with, or entirely replaced by, another line, and some of those are still traded informally under the original name. Registers of misidentified lines exist and are worth checking before a line enters a project.

Others have diverged so far between laboratories that two stocks with the same name behave differently. Authentication catches the first problem and passage discipline with a documented bank limits the second; neither is optional in work that will be published.

Common questions

Why buy from a repository rather than a colleague?

Because the repository supplies a citable identifier, a characterised identity, a known passage and a contamination status. A line passed between laboratories carries a history nobody recorded, and reconstructing it costs more than the purchase would have.

How often should a line be authenticated?

On arrival, before a bank is made, and periodically afterwards, with the profile kept. Journals and funders increasingly ask for that evidence, and it is far easier to produce prospectively than to reconstruct.

How many lines make a panel?

Enough to span the properties your conclusion depends on, each chosen because it represents one of them. A panel assembled from what grows well is a convenience; a panel where each line stands for a stated property is an argument.

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