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Basics of Cell Culture
Lecture
Dr. Maryam Zafar
Introduction
 Cell culture is the process by which
prokaryotic, eukaryotic or plant cells are
grown under controlled conditions. But in
practice it refers to the culturing of cells
derived from animal cells.
 Cell culture was first successfully undertaken
by Ross Harrison in 1907
 Roux in 1885 for the first time maintained
embryonic chick cells in a cell culture
Major development’s in cell
culture technology
 First development was the use of antibiotics
which inhibits the growth of contaminants.
 Second was the use of trypsin to remove
adherent cells to subculture further from the
culture vessel
 Third was the use of chemically defined
culture medium.
Applications of cell culture
Areas where cell culture technology is currently playing a
major role.
 Model systems for
Studying basic cell biology, interactions between disease
causing agents and cells, effects of drugs on cells, process
and triggering of aging & nutritional studies
 Toxicity testing
Study the effects of new drugs
 Cancer research
Study the function of various chemicals, virus & radiation to
convert normal cultured cells to cancerous cells
Contd….
 Virology
Cultivation of virus for vaccine production, also used to
study there infectious cycle.
 Genetic Engineering
Production of commercial proteins, large scale
production of viruses for use in vaccine production e.g.
polio, rabies, chicken pox, hepatitis B & measles
 Gene therapy
Cells having a functional gene can be replaced to cells
which are having non-functional gene
What is Tissue culture?
 In vitro cultivation of organs, tissues & cells at defined
temperature using an incubator & supplemented with a
medium containing cell nutrients & growth factors is
collectively known as tissue culture
 Different types of cell grown in culture includes
connective tissue elements such as fibroblasts, skeletal
tissue, cardiac, epithelial tissue (liver, breast, skin, kidney)
and many different types of tumor cells.
Primary culture
 Cells when surgically or enzymatically removed from an
organism and placed in suitable culture environment will
attach and grow are called as primary culture
 Primary cells have a finite life span
 Primary culture contains a very heterogeneous population
of cells
 Sub culturing of primary cells leads to the generation of cell
lines
 Cell lines have limited life span, they passage several times
before they become senescent
 Lineage of cells originating from the primary culture is called
a cell strain
Difference in Finite and Continuous
cell lines?
 Finite cell lines - The cell lines which have a limited life span
and go through a limited number of cell generations (usually
20-80 population doublings) are known as finite cell lines.
These cell lines exhibit the property of contact inhibition,
density limitation and anchorage dependence. The growth
rate is slow and doubling time is around 24-96 hours.
 Continuous cell lines
Most cell lines grow for a limited number of generations
after which they ceases. Cell lines which either occur
spontaneously or induced virally or chemically
transformed into Continuous cell lines
Types of cells
On the basis of morphology (shape & appearance) or on
their functional characteristics. They are divided into three.
 Epithelial like-attached to a substrate and appears
flattened and polygonal in shape
 Lymphoblast like- cells do not attach remain in suspension
with a spherical shape
 Fibroblast like- cells attached to an substrate appears
elongated and bipolar
Culture media
 Choice of media depends on the type of cell being cultured
 Commonly used Medium are EMEM, DMEM etc.
 Media is supplemented with antibiotics viz. penicillin,
streptomycin etc.
 Prepared media is filtered and incubated at 4 C
Why sub culturing.?
 Once the available substrate surface is covered by
cells (a confluent culture) growth slows & ceases.
 Cells to be kept in healthy & in growing state have
to be sub-cultured or passaged
 It’s the passage of cells when they reach to 80-
90% confluency in flask/dishes/plates
 Enzyme such as trypsin, dipase, collagenase
breaks the cellular glue that attached the cells to
the surface
Culturing of cells
 Cell lines derived from normal tissues are considered as
anchorage-dependent grows only on a suitable substrate
e.g. tissue cells
 Suspension cells are anchorage-independent e.g. blood
cells
 Transformed cell lines either grows as monolayer or as
suspension
Adherent cells
 Cells which are anchorage dependent
 Cells are washed with PBS solution.
 Incubate the plate at 37 C for 1-2 mins
 Tap the vessel from the sides to dislodge the cells
 Add complete medium to dissociate and dislodge the
cells
 with the help of pipette which are remained to be
adherent
 Add complete medium depends on the subculture
 requirement either to 75 cm or 175 cm flask
Suspension cells
 Easier to passage as no need to detach them
 As the suspension cells reach to confluency
 Aseptically remove 1/3rd of medium
 Replaced with the same amount of pre-warmed medium
Freezing cells for storage
 Remove the growth medium, wash the cells by PBS and
remove the PBS by aspiration
 Dislodge the cells by trypsin-versene
 Dilute the cells with growth medium
 Transfer the cell suspension to a 15 ml conical tube, centrifuge
at 200g for 5 mins at room temp and remove the growth
medium by aspiration
 Resuspend the cells in 1-2 ml of freezing medium
 Transfer the cells to cryovials, incubate the cryovials at -80 C
overnight
 Next day transfer the cryovials to Liquid nitrogen
Cell viability
 Cell viability is determined by staining the cells with
trypan blue
 As trypan blue dye is permeable to non-viable cells
or death cells whereas it is impermeable to this dye
 Stain the cells with trypan dye and load to
hemocytometer and calculate % of viable cells
% of viable cells= Number of unstained cells x 100
total number of cells
Common cell lines
 MCF-7 breast cancer
 HL 60 Leukemia
 HEK-293 Human embryonic kidney
 HeLa Henrietta lacks
 Vero African green monkey kidney
epithelial cells
 Cos-7 African green monkey kidney cells
 And others such as CHO from Chinese hamster
ovary cells, sf9 & sf21 from insect cells
Basic equipment's used in cell culture
 Biological safety cabinet-Vertical are preferable
 Incubation facilities- Temperature of 25-30 C for insect & 37
C for mammalian cells, co2 2-5% & 95% air at 99% relative
humidity. To prevent cell death incubators set to cut out at
approx. 38.5 C
 Refrigerators- Liquid media kept at 4 C, enzymes (e.g.
trypsin) & media components (e.g. glutamine & serum) at -
20 C
 Microscope- An inverted microscope with 10x to 100x
magnification
 Tissue culture ware- Culture plastic ware treated by
polystyrene
Basic aseptic conditions
 If working on the bench use a Bunsen flame to heat the
air surrounding the Bunsen
 Swab all bottle tops & necks with 70% ethanol
 Flame all bottle necks & pipette by passing very quickly
through the hottest part of the flame
 Avoiding placing caps & pipettes down on the bench;
practice holding bottle tops with the little finger
 Work either left to right or vice versa, so that all
material goes to one side, once finished
 Clean up spills immediately & always leave the work
place neat & tidy
Safety aspect in cell culture
 Possibly keep cultures free of antibiotics in order to be able
to recognize the contamination
 Never use the same media bottle for different cell lines. If
caps are dropped or bottles touched unconditionally
touched, replace them with new ones
 Necks of glass bottles prefer heat at least for 60 secs at a
temperature of 200 C
 Switch on the laminar flow cabinet 20 mins prior to start
working
 Cell cultures which are frequently used should be
subculture & stored as duplicate strains.
THE END.