- Jurkat cells
Jurkat cells are an immortalized line of
T lymphocyte cells that are used to study acute T cellleukemia , T cell signaling, and the expression of variouschemokine receptors susceptible to viral entry, particularlyHIV . Jurkat cells are also useful in science because of their ability to produceinterleukin 2 . Their primary use, however, is to determine the mechanism of differential susceptibility of cancers to drugs and radiation. The Jurkat cell line (originally called JM) was established in the late 1970s from the peripheral blood of a 14 year old boy with T cell leukemia. [cite journal |author=Schneider U, Schwenk H, Bornkamm G |title=Characterization of EBV-genome negative "null" and "T" cell lines derived from children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and leukemic transformed non-Hodgkin lymphoma |journal=Int J Cancer |volume=19 |issue=5 |pages=621–6 |year=1977 |pmid=68013 |doi=10.1002/ijc.2910190505] Different derivatives of the Jurkat cell line can now be obtained from cell culture banks [ [http://www.atcc.org/ American Type Culture Collection (ATCC)] ] that have been mutated to lack certain genes.Examples of derivatives
* The JCaM1.6 cell line is deficient in
Lck kinase activity due to the deletion of part of thelck gene (exon 7) from the Lcktranscript .* J.RT3-T3.5 cells lack the beta chain of the
T cell receptor . This affects the cells in several ways. They do not expressCD3 or produce the T cell receptor alpha/betaheterodimer . Since they are deficient in the TCR complex, these cells are a useful tool for transfection studies using T cell receptor alpha and beta chain genes.* The I 9.2 and I 2.1 cell lines. The "I 9.2 cell line" is functionally defective for
FADD and the "I 2.1 cell line" is functionally defective forcaspase-8 , both defective molecules being essential toapoptosis orprogrammed cell death of cells.* The D1.1 cell line does not express
CD4 molecule, an importantco-receptor in the activation pathway ofhelper T cells .* The J.gamma1 subline contains no detectable
phospholipase C -gamma1 (PLC-γ1) protein and therefore has profound defects in T cell receptor (TCR) calcium mobilization, and nuclear factor of activated T-cells (NFAT ) activation (an importanttranscription factor in T cells).References
External links
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