OVCAR-8-Luc Cells

OVCAR-8-Luc cells are a bioluminescent derivative of the human ovarian adenocarcinoma cell line OVCAR-8, which was originally established from an adult patient with advanced-stage disease. These cells have been genetically engineered to stably express luciferase, an enzyme that catalyzes light emission in the presence of its substrate, enabling highly sensitive, non-invasive monitoring of cellular activity. The parental OVCAR-8 line is characterized by aggressive growth, genomic instability, and features representative of high-grade serous ovarian cancer, making it a widely used model for studying ovarian tumor biology.

The incorporation of luciferase allows OVCAR-8-Luc cells to be used in longitudinal in vivo imaging applications, particularly in xenograft and orthotopic tumor models, where tumor burden and metastatic dissemination can be quantitatively tracked over time using bioluminescence imaging. These cells retain key molecular and phenotypic traits of the parental line, including alterations in pathways relevant to ovarian cancer progression such as p53 dysfunction and dysregulated cell cycle control. Consequently, OVCAR-8-Luc cells are well suited for evaluating therapeutic efficacy, tumor growth kinetics, and metastatic behavior, as well as for studying tumor microenvironment interactions in preclinical research.