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Raji revisited: cytogenetics of the original Burkitt's lymphoma cell line

Leukemia volume 19, pages 159–161 (2005)Cite this article

TO THE EDITOR

Raji is the first continuous human cell line of hematopoietic origin1 and was derived 40 years ago from a Nigerian patient with Burkitt's lymphoma (BL).2 Cell lines of BL origin were soon thereafter found to harbor the Epstein–Barr virus (EBV), leading to the discovery and isolation of this virus.3 Subsequent studies revealed specific chromosome translocations, involving the heavy- or light-chain immunoglobulin gene loci on chromosome 14 or 2, and the c-myc oncogene locus on chromosome 8, in biopsies and cell lines of BL origin (for a review, see Klein4). BL-derived cell lines provide a convenient and renewable source of material for genetic analysis, and they have been used in a broad variety of investigations, as reported in Leukemia5 and elsewhere; however, classical G-banding techniques have failed to produce a complete picture of chromosomal abnormalities in these cells. In view of the wide interest in these cell lines (more than 2500 publications in the MedLine database on Raji alone since Pulvertaft's seminal report2), we set out to resolve the definitive cytogenetic profile of the Raji cell line.

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Figure 1

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the Swedish Children's Cancer Foundation, the Cancer and Allergy Foundation of Sweden, the Swedish Cancer Foundation, and the Swedish Research Council. We thank Professor G Klein for critical reading of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Woman and Child Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    M B Karpova & J-I Henter

  2. Department of Genetics and Selection, St Petersburg State University, St Petersburg, Russia

    M B Karpova

  3. Department of Molecular Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    J Schoumans & M Nordenskjöld

  4. Microbiology and Tumor Biology Center, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    I Ernberg

  5. Division of Molecular Toxicology, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    B Fadeel

Authors
  1. M B Karpova
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  2. J Schoumans
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  3. I Ernberg
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  4. J-I Henter
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  5. M Nordenskjöld
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  6. B Fadeel
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Correspondence to B Fadeel.

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Karpova, M., Schoumans, J., Ernberg, I. et al. Raji revisited: cytogenetics of the original Burkitt's lymphoma cell line. Leukemia 19, 159–161 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.leu.2403534

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