ATCC Cell lines information, Database access

Question

[bxia]

Is there a way to access the ATCC database programmatically?

like back door url to only return the ATCC ID? Or return all the search result as a json/txt or table format?

Answer 1

[Amos Bairoch]

Unfortunatly there is no way to get programmatic access of information from the ATCC site. I asked them a few months ago and its neither avaialble nor planned for the near future.

However if you want to get a list of all cell lines that are distributed by ATCC you can use the Cellosaurus and parse the XML or text version.

in XML it is in the Xref elements. Example:

<xref database="ATCC" category="Cell line collections" accession="CRL-6468">
  <url>https://www.atcc.org/Products/All/CRL-6468.aspx]]></url>
</xref>

But beware: if you want the list of those that are currently distributed you need to filter out those that are discontinued as shown in the following example:

<xref database="ATCC" category="Cell line collections" accession="CRL-6470">
  <property-list>
    <property name="Discontinued" value="true"/>
  </property-list>
</xref>

Notes:

• At any given release of the Cellosaurus there may be small discrepancies on the list of available ATCC cell lines and what ATCC really distribute as check for new cell lines only every 3 or 4 months.
• The list of discontinued ATCC cell lines is not complete: it is an ongoing "project" to find out what cell lines were once distributed by ATCC but are not anymore. This information is not available at ATCC and we retrieve it from old printed copies of their catalogs as well as other sources.