Characterization of HepAD38 and HepG2-NTCP Cell Lines

HepAD38 is an inducible hepatoblastoma cell line that contains an HBV infectious clone under the control of a tetracycline (tet)-off regulated cytomegalovirus (CMV) promoter; HBV is induced when tet is removed from the culture medium [31 (link)]. HepG2 cells were purchased from the American Type Culture Collection (Manassas, VA, USA). HepG2-NTCP clone 3E8 and HepG2-NTCP clone 7 cells were gifts from Drs. Charles Rice and Eleftherios Michailidis (Rockefeller University, NY, USA). HepG2-NTCP clone 3E8 and HepG2-NTCP clone 7 cells were described previously [33 (link),34 (link)]. Human 293T cells were from the American Type Culture Collection. In general, all cells were maintained in Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle’s Medium (DMEM) with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS). For HepAD38 cells, 0.3 µg/mL tet and 400 µg/mL G418 were added to the culture medium, as previously described [31 (link)]. Cells were incubated at 37 °C in the presence of 5% CO₂.