HYBRIDIZATION OF TWO BIOCHEMICALLY MARKED HUMAN CELL LINES^*,†

Abstract

A hybrid cell line of clonal origin has been obtained by cocultivation of two biochemically marked human cell strains. One parental line is diploid and derived from a male infant with orotic aciduria, a rare autosomal recessive disease. This line has deficient activity for the final two enzymes in the biosynthetic pathway leading to uridylic acid and possesses the B electrophoretic type of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase. The other parental line (D98/AH-2) is heteroploid, is resistant to 8-azahypoxanthine, and has deficient inosinic acid pyrophosphorylase activity. It displays the A⁺ variant of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase. The A⁺ and B types of this dehydrogenase are known to be determined by allelic, sex-linked, Mendelian genes. The cloned hybrid cells exhibit genetic traits of both parents: (1) Their modal chromosome number is approximately the sum of those of the two parental lines; (2) they have levels of activity for both enzymes affected by the gene for orotic aciduria which are intermediate between those of the two parental lines; (3) they have higher activity than the D98/AH parent for inosinic acid pyrophosphorylase; (4) they have both A⁺ and B isozyme bands of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase. These hybrid cells represent the first known example of a cloned line of mammalian origin in which two X-linked allelic genes function.