Minimum reporting requirements for newly established human tumor-derived cell lines: a pragmatic checklist anchored to ICLAC, Cellosaurus/RRID, Nature Portfolio standards, and UKCCCR guidelines.

Human tumor-derived cell lines remain foundational and complementary resources for mechanistic and translational cancer research. However, reports of newly established cell lines vary in the scope and completeness of basic information, and the distinction between essential reporting items and value-added characterization is often unclear. This review proposes a pragmatic Minimum reporting checklist for newly established human tumor-derived cell lines. The Minimum tier prioritizes durable, reproducibility-critical information required for establishment reports. These items include unambiguous cell line designation and Research Resource Identifier (RRID) citation, identity authentication through short tandem repeat (STR) profiling, mycoplasma status, tumor and donor provenance, ethics oversight, reproducible culture conditions, passage history and/or population doubling level, and a transparent access pathway. Tumor and donor provenance includes the diagnostic basis, key tumor specimen characteristics, and limited, anonymized clinicopathological context. The checklist is anchored in the convergence of four widely used frameworks: the International Cell Line Authentication Committee (ICLAC) Cell Line Checklist, Cellosaurus/RRID, Nature Portfolio reporting standards, and UK Co-ordinating Committee on Cancer Research (UKCCCR) guidelines. It is provided as a user-facing checklist (Table 1), a mapping to ICLAC and Cellosaurus practices (Table 2), and a crosswalk showing areas of convergence across all frameworks (Online Resource 1; Table S1). Xenografts, extensive functional phenotyping, and broad omics profiling are discussed as Recommended or Optional modules rather than Minimum requirements. Adoption of this Minimum checklist may harmonize reporting practices, improve transparency and reusability, and increase the likelihood that new cell lines, including those from rare cancers, are publicly reported, registered, and discoverable.