Primary culture:
- These are the cells that are derived directly from the tissues (enzyme digestion) or from tissue fragments (also known as explants).
- It is very hard and time consuming to grow and maintain primary cell cultures compared to cell lines.
- As they retain the characteristics and reflect the true activity of the cell type in vivo, they are preferred for the cell culture experiments (For example; To understand the disease, primary cells are grown from both diseased patient biopsy (tissue affected by the disease - for example skin tissue) and healthy volunteers skin tissue and differences are studied by performing various assays or experiments.
- The drawback of the primary cells is their life-span. They can only be grown for a limited period of time.
- The cells obtained will depend on the tissue that are used to grow them (For example when used endothelium of blood vessels, endothelial cells and when used connective tissue, fibroblasts are obtained).
- Usually the cells grown from tissues at the starting stage will have a mixture of cells (heterogeneous population). The media is given in such a way that only the cells that you intend to grow survives and rest die.
Cell lines (continuous):
- These are the transformed cells that has the ability to grow continuously (infinitely).
- They are transformed or changed by many ways (treat with carcinogens, expose to virus).
- As they are transformed, they might loose some of their original in vivo characteristics and might not completely represent the cells of the tissue that they come originally come from.
- The advantages are they grow fast, continuously and need less serum in media.
- As a result, many experiments can be run in short time without worrying about cells dying after certain time.
Example of cell lines:
HeLa -----Epithelial cells
THP-1 ----Monocytes
NIH/3T3--Fibroblasts
BAE-1 ----Endothelial cells
CHO ------Fibroblasts
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