Public release date: 7-Aug-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Tracey DePellegrin Connelly tracey.depellegrin@thegsajournals.org 412-760-5391 Genetics Society of America

BETHESDA, MD -- The first study to sequence and analyze the entire genome of a HeLa cell line, along with access to its sequence data, has been published today (Wednesday, August 7) in its final version, by G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics, an open-access, scientific journal of the Genetics Society of America.

The article, "The Genomic and Transcriptomic Landscape of a HeLa Cell Line," by Landry et al., was authored by scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, and was published in an early online version March 11, 2013.

Genomic data from the HeLa cell line are also being released with the final version of the paper as a result of discussions between leaders of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and relatives of Henrietta Lacks, from whose cervical tumor the original HeLa cell line was derived prior to her death in 1951. The genomic data will now be available to scientists via the NCBI's Database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGaP).

In direct response to the concerns of the Lacks family that the privacy of their genetic information might be affected by the availability of the HeLa genome sequence data published in G3, the EMBL scientists voluntarily removed the HeLa cell line sequence data from public access, and offered to work with the family towards a mutually acceptable solution. NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., and NIH Deputy Director for Science, Outreach, and Policy Kathy L. Hudson, Ph.D., met several times with representatives of the Lacks family, and came to a mutual understanding to allow biomedical researchers controlled access to the data. Dr. Collins and Dr. Hudson describe their discussions with the Lacks family in a Comment published in this week's edition of the journal Nature.

Since their isolation in 1951, HeLa cells have been the most widely used human cell line in research. They have become a valuable resource for biologists, enabling momentous scientific breakthroughs including the development of the polio vaccine the Nobel Prize winning studies defining the role of telomerase in aging, and research on the causative role of human papillomavirus (HPV) in some types of cervical cancer. The latter discovery spurred the development of an HPV vaccine to prevent certain types of cervical cancer from occurring. In fact, Ms. Lacks' death was caused by cervical cancer.

The advent of genomics and rapid sequencing techniques has seen HeLa cells used in numerous large-scale studies of gene function and expression. Yet, "these studies using HeLa cells had to rely on information from the 'reference' sequence produced by the Human Genome Project, even though there was evidence that the genomes of HeLa cell lines were probably quite different," said Lars Steinmetz, Ph.D., who led the G3 study.

Dr. Steinmetz and his team found the genome of the HeLa cell line that they sequenced differs dramatically from a normal human genome sequence. These differences include widespread sequence variation, extra copies of genes, and massive, complex rearrangements.

Because the dataset now will be available to the scientific community, researchers will be able to account for these differences when designing and interpreting experiments using this HeLa cell line. The genomic particularities of HeLa cells relate to their origin from an aggressive cancer and subsequent cultivation in laboratories for decades, both of which cause considerable genomic alterations.

Follow this link:
Access to HeLa cell genome data restored following agreement

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