Cell line misidentification or contamination can derail your research. Fortunately, there is an easy way to confirm the identity of human cell lines in your laboratory: short tandem repeat (STR) analysis.
To standardize STR analysis for human cell line authentication, the American Tissue Culture Collection (ATCC) Standards Development Organization Workgroup published the ASN-0002-2011, which recommends the use of at least eight STR loci (TH01, TPOX, vWA, CSF1PO, D16S539, D7S820, D13S317 and D5S818) plus Amelogenin for gender identification.