The cells derived from the human embryo liver tissue were transfected with a plasmid pSV3neo containing both the large and small T-antigen gene of the early region of simian virus 40 (SV40), and two cell strains, OUMS-21 and -22, were obtained. OUMS-22 cells, to date, have reached over 100 population doublings through a culture crisis and are considered to have become an immortal cell line. However, OUMS-21 cells failed to become an immortal cell line. Both OUMS-21 and -22 cells were SV40 T-antigen-positive, epithelial-like, and immunoreactive against an anti-keratin 18 monoclonal antibody but against neither an anti-vimentin nor an anti-von Willebrandt factor VIII monoclonal antibody. The staining pattern of cytokeratin in these cells was similar to that in the differentiated human hepatoblastoma and hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines but not to that in the human cholangiocellular carcinoma cell lines. OUMS-21 and -22 cells expressed neither alpha-fetoprotein nor albumin mRNAs. These cells showed no tyrosine aminotransferase activity. However, both OUMS-21 and -22 cells were sensitive to cytotoxicity of aflatoxin B1, 3-amino-1,4-dimethyl-5H-pyrido[4,3-b]indole, and benzo[a]pyrene, whereas human embryo lung fibroblasts were insensitive to the cytotoxicity of these carcinogens. These findings suggest that OUMS-21 and -22 cells may arise from undifferentiated liver stem cells or from hepatocytes that lost their ability to express the liver-specific functions prior to immortalization. Both OUMS-21 and -22 cells expressed glutathione S-transferase pi (GST-pi) mRNA. The expression of GST-pi mRNA highly increased in OUMS-22 cells with their immortalization. Karyotypic analysis showed that numerical and structural aberrations of the chromosomes were profound, but neither specific events nor marker chromosomes were found in OUMS-21 and -22 cells. Both OUMS-21 and -22 cells could grow in soft agar, but they were not tumorigenic when transplanted into nude mice.