The EFNB1 Knockout Huh-7 Polyclonal Cells are a CRISPR/Cas9-edited polyclonal knockout cell population for studying ephrin-B1 in hepatocellular carcinoma. Created by disrupting EFNB1 in Huh-7 cells, this heterogeneous pool provides a cost-effective functional genomics tool, avoiding clonal variation while enabling pooled analysis. Suited for research on ephrin-B1 signaling, migration, and therapeutic resistance.
Huh-7 is a well-characterized human hepatocellular carcinoma epithelial cell line from a 57-year-old Japanese male. It exhibits high proliferative capacity, maintains liver-specific protein expression, and is widely used as a model for hepatocyte function, drug metabolism, and viral replication. These cells retain hepatic differentiation features, making them a relevant platform for HCC molecular mechanism studies and genetic manipulation.
EFNB1 encodes ephrin-B1, a transmembrane ligand for Eph receptors that mediates bidirectional signaling. It is regulated by ??-catenin/TCF, FGF, microRNA-200, and Notch, and activates downstream effectors including RhoA, Rac1, Cdc42, Src, FAK, and ERK1/2, while modulating Snail and Zeb1 transcription factors. Ephrin-B1 interacts with EphB2, EphB3, EphA4, PDZ proteins, Grb4, and Met, governing cytoskeletal dynamics, cell adhesion, and boundary formation, with roles in neural crest migration, angiogenesis, and tumor progression.
In Huh-7 cells, EFNB1 knockout impairs bidirectional Eph/ephrin signaling, leading to altered actin cytoskeleton dynamics and reduced migration and invasion. This disruption likely attenuates crosstalk with Wnt/??-catenin and MAPK/ERK pathways, both critical in HCC. The loss of ephrin-B1-mediated regulation of Rho GTPases and FAK further compromises tumor cell dissemination and survival, while also impacting proliferation. Thus, this polyclonal knockout model offers a valuable system to dissect how ephrin-B1 integrates with oncogenic pathways in hepatocellular carcinoma progression and drug resistance.
Typical applications include Western blotting, RT-qPCR, transwell migration and invasion assays, scratch wound healing, and actin cytoskeleton staining, as well as co-immunoprecipitation and phospho-signaling analysis to probe protein interactions and kinase activities. The cells also facilitate Wnt pathway crosstalk studies, drug sensitivity profiling, and mechanistic dissection of ephrin-B1’s role in hepatocellular carcinoma. For further details and custom inquiries, please contact Ascent Research.
