Immortalized Human Endometrial Stromal Cells-SV40

The human endometrium undergoes dynamic cyclic remodeling, and its stromal compartment plays essential roles in menstruation, decidualization, and embryo implantation. Obtaining primary human endometrial stromal cells (hESCs) is challenging due to tissue scarcity and their limited proliferative capacity in culture, which constrains long-term investigations. To overcome these limitations, human endometrial stromal cells have been immortalized via stable introduction of the Simian Virus 40 (SV40) large T antigen.

SV40 large T antigen disrupts p53- and pRB-dependent cell cycle checkpoints, enabling the cells to bypass replicative senescence and achieve continuous proliferation. The resulting immortalized hESC line retains key morphological characteristics of primary stromal cells, exhibiting an adherent, polygonal morphology. Importantly, these cells maintain expression of stromal lineage markers-including vimentin, smooth muscle actin, and desmin-as confirmed by immunostaining and Western blot analysis, demonstrating that immortality is achieved without loss of the original phenotype. Furthermore, immortalized cells preserve functional responsiveness to physiological stimuli, such as hormonal induction of decidualization, thereby recapitulating core biological behaviors of their primary counterparts.

Collectively, the Immortalized Human Endometrial Stromal Cells-SV40 line provides a consistent, reproducible, and phenotypically faithful model system for studying endometrial physiology, hormonal regulation, and the pathogenesis of endometriosis and endometrial cancer, while circumventing the material limitations and passage constraints inherent to primary cell cultures.