Models Of Disease Flashcards
What does in vivo mean?
Cells growing in their normal biological context
Inside the body
What does ex vivo mean?
From the body but now outside the body
What does explantation mean?
Tissue growing outside the body in culture
Outside normal biological context
What does in vitro mean?
Latin for in the glass
Cells growing in culture outside the normal biological context
What is a tissue culture?
The growth of cells from a tissue from a multicellular organism in vitro
What are primary cells?
Cells isolated from a donor organism
How are cells maintained and grown in culture?
Given essential nutrients
Correct physio-chemical environment
Grown in substrate
Given growth factors
What are the necessary nutrients for cell growth in a culture?
Amino acids
Carbohydrates
Vitamins
Minerals
Hormones
Gases
What does the physio-chemical environment refer to?
pH
Osmotic pressure
Temperature
What is the difference between primary cells and immortalised cells?
Primary have a limited life span and will not proliferate indefinitely
Immortalised cells can proliferate indefinitely through random mutation or deliberate modification
What is senescence?
Undergo according to their Hayflick limit
The mean number of doubling times before division ceases
What is cell confluency?
The proportion of the culture dish or flask covered by adherent cells
Different cell confluencies
10% - ideal for planting/seeding
30% - good for transfection
50% - will need to split soon, not much more room left to grow
90% - cells touching, good barrier function tests and western blot to maximise protein harvest
What is an apoptotic cell?
A type of cell death in which a series of molecular steps in a cell lead to it death
What are the advantages to in vitro studies?
Relatively cheap and easy
High level of control
Test drugs easily and quickly
Potential to investigate disease models and cell interactions
What is a simple in vitro cell culture model?
2-D monolayers
What is a complex in vitro cell culture method?
3-D gel cultures and co-cultures
Transwell systems
What are the limitations of tissue culture?
Potential for cross species contamination
Introduction of viruses/prions
Animals have homeostasis - cultures don’t
Animals vary in genetics
What are the limitation of in vitro culture?
Loss of specialised extracellular matrix
Loss of paracrine stimulation and endocrine factors
Loss of contact mediated stimulation
What are the outcomes of induced pluripotent stem cells?
Reduce risk of immune rejection
Sidestep ethical concerns of using embryos
Opportunity to put right problem at the genetic level
Limitations of induced pluripotent stem cells
Are they mutation free?
Are they potentially cancerous?
Can they really be grafted back into a patient?
How long will they survive in vivo?
Will they actually solve the problem?
What is personalised medicine?
Drug testing on the individuals genome
Investigating the genetic origins of the disease
What are in vivo studies?
Any surgical procedure, imaging or behavioural experiment done on live animals