Faculty of Medicine, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119991 Moscow, Russia.
Medical Research and Education Center, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119234 Moscow, Russia.
Int J Mol Sci. 2023 Aug 12;24(16):12716. doi: 10.3390/ijms241612716.
In modern science, immortalized cells are not only a convenient tool in fundamental research, but they are also increasingly used in practical medicine. This happens due to their advantages compared to the primary cells, such as the possibility to produce larger amounts of cells and to use them for longer periods of time, the convenience of genetic modification, the absence of donor-to-donor variability when comparing the results of different experiments, etc. On the other hand, immortalization comes with drawbacks: possibilities of malignant transformation and/or major phenotype change due to genetic modification itself or upon long-term cultivation appear. At first glance, such issues are huge hurdles in the way of immortalized cells translation into medicine. However, there are certain ways to overcome such barriers that we describe in this review. We determined four major areas of usage of immortalized cells for practical medicinal purposes, and each has its own means to negate the drawbacks associated with immortalization. Moreover, here we describe specific fields of application of immortalized cells in which these problems are of much lesser concern, for example, in some cases where the possibility of malignant growth is not there at all. In general, we can conclude that immortalized cells have their niches in certain areas of practical medicine where they can successfully compete with other therapeutic approaches, and more preclinical and clinical trials with them should be expected.
在现代科学中，永生化细胞不仅是基础研究中的一种便捷工具，而且在实际医学中也越来越多地被应用。这是由于它们相对于原代细胞具有优势，例如可以生产更多数量的细胞并使用更长时间，方便进行基因修饰，以及在比较不同实验结果时不存在供体间的变异性等。然而，永生化也存在一些缺点：由于基因修饰本身或长期培养，恶性转化和/或主要表型改变的可能性会出现。乍一看，这些问题是将永生化细胞转化为医学应用的巨大障碍。然而，确实存在一些克服这些障碍的方法，我们在本文综述中进行了描述。我们确定了永生化细胞在实际医学应用中的四个主要领域，每个领域都有自己的方法来消除与永生化相关的缺点。此外，我们还描述了永生化细胞在某些应用领域中的具体应用，在这些领域中，这些问题的重要性较低，例如在某些情况下，根本不存在恶性生长的可能性。总的来说，我们可以得出结论，永生化细胞在某些实际医学领域中具有自己的应用空间，在这些领域中，它们可以成功地与其他治疗方法竞争，并且预计会有更多的临床前和临床试验。
