• I wanted to check which cells they used, because using bacteria would give it no power at all, as bacteria have very different uptake, DNA damage tolerance and DNA repair mechanisms. they used:

    • SW620: a epithelial cancer cell line from a 51 yr old male’s colorectal cancer
    • HEK293 an immortalised cell line from a human embryo kidney
    • MCF-7 a breast cancer cell line.
    • HeLa the infamous HPV cervical cancer cell line.

    source

    So they are all human cells, and the SW620 cells would be somewhat similar to our gut epithelial cells, as they once were the same. It’s hard to be certain though, because immortal cell lines can accumulate many differences since they were isolated.

    The SW620 cells did take up the damaged nucleosides, and more so than HeLa or MCF-7.