Lecture 1

Question 1

give a brief overview over the history of cell culture

Answer 1

cell culture has been happening around 120 years
1900: explantation and outgrowth. tissue is grown, not isolated cells. just tissue cultures
1950: development of cell lines. trypsin allows for isolated cells. Cells were often contaminated with bacteria until antibiotics were invented, which allowed long term culture
Current: analysis and manipulation of cell lines/fresh cells

Question 2

describe the difference between tissue culture and cell culture

Answer 2

Tissue culture: tissue removed and put in culture. restricted outgrowth
Cell culture: cells are dispersed by enzymes (trypsin)

Question 3

define what the term tissue culture, organ culture, cell culture, histotypic culture, and organotypic culture refer to

Answer 3

tissue culture: tissue removed and put in culture
organ culture: tissue culture that is grown to a 3-D organ shape
cell culture: dispersed single cells
histotypic culture: reaggregated single cells from one cell type, forming 3D structure similar to an organ (eg skin graft)
organotypic culture: reaggregated single cells from several cell types that form 3D structure similar to organ, a tissue equivalent

Question 4

list field of cell culture application

Answer 4

Vaccine development
cancer treatment
insulin, antibodies, growth hormone production
regenerative medicine
gene therapy
stem cells is promising
in vitro fertilization
diagnostics

Question 5

describe the difference between basic and applied cell culture and give examples

Answer 5

basic: study the cells themselves. DNA transcription, protein synthesis, genetic analysis, metabolic pathways, cell proliferation, matrix interaction, etc.
- Intracellular activity, intracellular flux, genomics, proteomics, cell-cell interaction
applied: using cells as tools. biotechnology, product harvesting, antibody production, induced pluripotency, signaling, inflammation, carcinogenesis
- cell products, immunology, pharmacology, tissue engineering, toxicology

Question 6

describe advantages and disadvantages/limitation of cell culture

Answer 6

Advantages:
1. control of environment
2. sample is characterized and homogeneous
3. economical and scalable
4. in vitro modeling of in vivo conditions
Disadvantages:
1. expertise required
2. quantity is small
3. dedifferentiation and selection; cell origin
4. instability
5. in vitro behavior does not equal in vivo behavior always
See slides 19-20 and lecture 2 slide 1 for more detail/examples!

Question 7

what happens in a cell line? 2 types of cell lines

Answer 7

cells constantly divide and number increases per generation. cells are dissociated and reseeded when confluent. the fastest proliferators dominate and over time the population is homogeneous.
two types: finite life span and continuous “transformation”