The FAM20B Knockout Raji Polyclonal Cells product is a CRISPR/Cas9-edited polyclonal knockout cell population derived from the human Raji B lymphocyte line. This tool provides a loss-of-function model for investigating FAM20B, a xylose kinase essential for glycosaminoglycan biosynthesis. The polyclonal format contains a heterogeneous pool of edited cells, reflecting the diversity of CRISPR-mediated target-gene disruption without clonal selection, making it suitable for studies requiring population-level effects.
Raji is an EBV-positive Burkitt’s lymphoma B lymphocyte cell line that retains surface immunoglobulin expression and displays constitutive NF-??B activation and MYC deregulation. Its robust suspension growth and well-characterized malignant phenotype make it a key model for viral oncogenesis and lymphomagenesis, and it is amenable to high-throughput screening, flow cytometry, and functional assays.
FAM20B encodes a xylose kinase that phosphorylates the xylose residue in the tetrasaccharide linkage region of glycosaminoglycan chains, a critical step for chondroitin sulfate and heparan sulfate proteoglycan synthesis. The enzyme is regulated upstream by TGF-?? signaling and the transcription factor SOX9, and it functions within glycosyltransferase complexes containing EXT1 and EXT2. Disruption of FAM20B leads to impaired proteoglycan assembly, affecting downstream effectors such as chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans, heparan sulfate proteoglycans, and extracellular matrix components, ultimately altering cell adhesion, migration, and growth factor signaling.
In Raji cells, FAM20B knockout provides a unique system to examine the contribution of proteoglycan-mediated signaling to B cell lymphoma biology. The EBV-transformed background enables exploration of crosstalk between GAG biosynthesis and oncogenic pathways, offering insights into how FAM20B loss may influence tumor-microenvironment interactions. While FAM20B is associated with lung adenocarcinoma and skeletal dysplasias, this model extends its study to hematological malignancies.
Applications include cancer research, glycosaminoglycan biology, and B cell lymphoma studies. Users can validate FAM20B disruption via Western blotting and RT-qPCR, assess proteoglycan expression with immunofluorescence and flow cytometry, and profile GAGs by mass spectrometry. Functional assays such as migration, invasion, and drug sensitivity tests enable evaluation of the knockout??s impact on lymphoma behavior and therapeutic response. These cells are also valuable for drug target validation and extracellular matrix research. For further inquiries, please contact Ascent Research.
