SNU-423 Cells

The SNU-423 cell line is a human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) model established from a Korean adult patient. It is one of eight HCC cell lines derived from primary liver tumors and characterized for their morphological, genetic, and virological properties. SNU-423 displays substrate adherence and maintains many of the histological features of the original tumor, consistent with hepatocyte-derived epithelial morphology. It exhibits aneuploidy and has a modal chromosome number indicative of chromosomal instability, which is common in HCC-derived lines.

At the molecular level, SNU-423 is notable for integration of hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA within its genome, a characteristic shared by all lines in its cohort, reflecting the high prevalence of HBV-associated liver cancer in Eastern Asia. While some cell lines in the series express HBV transcripts such as HBVx, specific transcript expression in SNU-423 was not reported. Additionally, SNU-423 does not express alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) at either the RNA or protein level, aligning it with a subset of HCCs that lack AFP secretion. It has been used in pharmacogenomic screens such as the LIMORE (Liver Cancer Model Repository), where it contributes to understanding gene-drug associations in liver cancer, including drug response variability potentially linked to HBV status or distinct oncogenic alterations.