Objective: To establish an immortalized marrow mesenchymal stem cell line to facilitate advances in cartilage engineering research.
Methods: Human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) cDNA was transferred into primary human marrow mesenchymal stem cells (hMSC) by retroviral vector pLEGFP-C1-hTERT. Subsequently G418 resistant cell clone was screened and expanded for further studies.