Possible applications of conditionally immortalized tissue cell lines withdifferentiation functions

If all individual cell types of the body could be clonally isolated and sto cked, similar to cDNA or genomic DNA libraries, they would be invaluable fo r studying the tissue and cellular functions. We developed a new method of establishing conditionally immortalized cell lines that retain differentiat ed cell functions similar to the original tissues, using temperature-sensit ive (ts) simian virus 40 large tumor antigen gene transgenic animals. In th is review the properties of such conditionally immortalized cell lines and their possible applications are discussed. (C) 2001 Academic Press.