this is a spontaneously arising retinal pigment epithelia (RPE) cell line derived from the normal eyes of 19-year-old male who died from head trauma in a motor vehicle accident; the cells form stable monolayers, which exhibit morphological and functional polarity; the line expresses the RPE-specific markers CRALBP and RPE-65; the cells exhibit morphological polarization when plated on laminin-coated Transwell-COL filters in medium with a low serum concentration; they form tight-junctions with transepithelial resistance of monolayers reaching a maximum of 50 to 100 ohms/cm2 after 4 weeks of culture; the cells are diploid and can be carried for over 30 passages.