5 One technique

to increase the number of cells available and to develop clonal populations of cells which should in theory be homogeneous and stable is to transform the cells with an oncogene. The transforming Nutlin-3 price gene usually used is SV40, a monkey-derived gene which promotes unregulated proliferation of the cells into which it is transfected. Sraer and colleagues in Paris produced an SV40-transformed human podocyte cell line6,7 and they generously shared this reagent with other workers including us. We found that this cell line was easy to propagate and we rapidly accumulated large numbers of cells for in vitro experiments. However, again the cells did not develop the phenotype of differentiated podocytes and we felt that newer more representative cell lines were needed. In 1997, Peter Mundel and colleagues reported8 the characterization of a mouse podocyte cell line derived from the

‘Immortomouse’ whose cells all express SV40 transforming gene under the control of a gamma-interferon response element. Thus, cells from this mouse can be induced to express higher levels of SV40 by treatment in vitro with gamma-interferon. The original mouse podocyte cell Selleckchem BGJ398 line, which in time came to be known colloquially as ‘Mundelocytes’, was shown to express markers of mature podocytes Methocarbamol and was generously shared with other researchers, becoming very widely used for understanding podocyte biology. In collaboration with Peter Mundel, we9 applied a similar principle to the development of a human podocyte cell line: this time

the SV40 had to be supplied to the cells in vitro after isolation of the cells of interest. The SV40 construct that we used is temperature-sensitive, giving us control of its expression in vitro: at 33°C the transgene is expressed, allowing the cells to be transformed and to proliferate vigorously. When the cells are moved to a culture temperature of 37°C, akin to the normal physiological body temperature, the transgene is silenced and the cells become differentiated, ceasing to proliferate. This approach had been previously used by our collaborator Mike O’Hare in other cell types10 and the original normal human podocyte cell line, known colloquially as ‘Saleemocytes’, has now been widely shared and studied by numerous groups worldwide. The next section gives more details of the techniques required for the generation of these cells.