title: Immortalization of normal liver functions in cell culture: rat hepatocyte-hepatoma cell hybrids expressing ornithine carbamoyltransferase activity.
abstract: Normal rat hepatocytes have been fused with highly differentiated rat hepatoma cells. Some of the hybrids express a physiologically significant level of activity of the urea cycle enzyme ornithine carbamoyltransferase (OCT), a liver-specific function not found in the hepatoma cells. These hybrids have 10% of the adult rat liver OCT specific activity, incorporate 3H-ornithine into protein arginine, and can be selectively grown in arginine-free medium supplemented with ornithine. Somatic cell hybridization of normal differentiated cells with highly differentiated neoplastic cells of the same tissue type may be useful as a general method for obtaining permanent cell lines with new tissue-specific phenotypes.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001120:Arginine / Q000096:biosynthesis; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D002455:Cell Division; D002459:Cell Fusion; D002460:Cell Line; D003470:Culture Media; D006822:Hybrid Cells / Q000201:enzymology*; D007621:Karyotyping; D008099:Liver; D008114:Liver Neoplasms, Experimental; D009954:Ornithine Carbamoyltransferase / Q000378:metabolism*; D051381:Rats
chemical_list: D003470:Culture Media; D001120:Arginine; D009954:Ornithine Carbamoyltransferase