HEK 293 cells

Human embryonic kidney 293 cells, also often referred to as HEK 293, HEK-293, 293 cells, are an immortalised cell line derived from HEK cells isolated from a female fetus in the 1970s.

The HEK 293 cell line has been widely used in research for decades due to its reliable and fast growth and propensity for transfection. The cell line is used by the biotechnology industry to produce therapeutic proteins and viruses for gene therapy as well as safety testing for a vast array of chemicals.

HEK 293 cells were generated in 1973 by transfection of cultures of normal human embryonic kidney cells with sheared adenovirus 5 DNA in Alex van der Eb's laboratory in Leiden, the Netherlands. The cells were obtained from a single, aborted or miscarried fetus, the precise origin of which is unclear. The cells were cultured by van der Eb; the transfection with adenoviral DNA was performed by Frank Graham, a post-doc in van der Eb's lab. They were published in 1977 after Graham left Leiden for McMaster University. They are called HEK since they originated in human embryonic kidney cultures, while the number 293 came from Graham's habit of numbering his experiments; the original HEK 293 cell clone was from his 293rd experiment. Graham performed the transfection a total of eight times, obtaining just one clone of cells that were cultured for several months. After presumably adapting to tissue culture, cells from this clone developed into the relatively stable HEK 293 line.

Subsequent analysis has shown that the transformation was brought about by inserting ~4.5 kilobases from the left arm of the adenoviral genome, which became incorporated into human chromosome 19.

For many years it was assumed that HEK 293 cells were generated by transformation of either a fibroblastic, endothelial or epithelial cell, all of which are abundant in kidneys. However, the original adenovirus transformation was inefficient, suggesting that the cell that finally produced the HEK 293 line may have been unusual in some fashion. Graham and coworkers provided evidence that HEK 293 cells and other human cell lines generated by adenovirus transformation of human embryonic kidney cells have many properties of immature neurons, suggesting that the adenovirus preferentially transformed a neuronal lineage cell in the original kidney culture.

A comprehensive study of the genomes and transcriptomes of HEK 293 and five derivative cell lines compared the HEK 293 transcriptome with that of human kidney, adrenal, pituitary and central nervous tissue. The HEK 293 pattern most closely resembled that of adrenal cells, which have many neuronal properties. Given the location of the adrenal gland (adrenal means "next to the kidney"), a few adrenal cells could plausibly have appeared in an embryonic kidney derived culture, and could be preferentially transformed by adenovirus. Adenoviruses transform neuronal lineage cells much more efficiently than typical human kidney epithelial cells. An embryonic adrenal precursor cell therefore seems the most likely origin cell of the HEK 293 line. As a consequence, HEK 293 cells should not be used as an in vitro model of typical kidney cells.

HEK 293 cells have a complex karyotype, exhibiting two or more copies of each chromosome and with a modal chromosome number of 64. They are described as hypotriploid, containing less than three times the number of chromosomes of a haploid human gamete. Chromosomal abnormalities include a total of three copies of the X chromosomes and four copies of chromosome 17 and chromosome 22. The presence of multiple X chromosomes and the lack of any trace of Y chromosome derived sequence suggest that the source fetus was female.

The 293T cell line was created in Michele Calos's lab at Stanford by stable transfection of the HEK 293 cell line with a plasmid encoding a temperature-sensitive mutant of the SV40 large T antigen; it was originally referred to as 293/tsA1609neo. The first reference to the cell line as "293T" may be its use to create the BOSC23 packaging cell line for producing retroviral particles.