Human Cell 9 Flashcards
What are the advantages of working with cultured cells over intact organisms?
More homogenous
Can control experimental conditions
Can isolate single cells into a colony
What do cells require to grow in culture?
Sterile conditions
Rich media of AA and nutrients
Correct pH
What are growth curves plotted on?
Log scales
What are the stages of tissue culture?
Generate a primary culture
Grows to produce a primary cell line
Most cells undergo senescence
A few cells escape senescence and form a cell line
What happens in the ‘generate a primary culture stage’?
Primary cell cultures are established from animal tissues
What happens in the ‘grows to produce a primary cell line’?
Cells grow in monolayer in dish until space is filled.
Need to passage to keep cell line going – small number of cells transferred to fresh culture dish.
What happens in the ‘most cells undergo senescence’?
Most cells removed from an animal grow and divide for a limited period of time (about 50 doublings), then eventually die.
Outline 3 characteristics of transformed cell lines?
Immortal (dont undergo senescene)
Anchorage independant
Reduced requirement for growth factors
Who was Henrietta Lacks?
Original donor of HeLa dells
Give two uses of animal cells?
Protein production
Tissue engineering
What is a hybrid caused by?
Two different cells fusing together
List the uses of monoclonal antibodies?
Research – detect and measure specific proteins or other antigens
Research – purify antigens by affinity chromatography
Diagnosis – detect markers of disease
Therapy – eg Herceptin (Trastuzumab) treatment of
HER breast cancer
Define stem cell
An undifferentiated cell that can specialise into a particular cell
Describe embryonic stem cells
Earl human embryo at blastocyst stage
What is an advantage of using embryonic stem cells?
They are pluripotent, they can form any cell type
