Cell culture is the common practice for almost all cancer research in the world currently. This technique involves the way to grow up the cells, especially the cancer cells and subsequently enables the cells to live outside the body. As what I have mentioned in my previous post, I am going to write a Cancer Cell Culture Series in this blog which covers most of the topic in cell culture. This is the first post of the series. The aim of this post is all about the introduction of cell culture and some of the basic concepts of it.
Introduction of Cell Culture
Since the publication of the first human cancer cell line, HeLa, the cancer cell culture has been expanded throughout the world. Consequently, there are plenty of cancer cell lines which represent the most of the spectrum of human cancer have been successfully cultured in vitro. For example, the MCF-7 cancer cell line has been utilized in most of the breast cancer research. In addition, the HepG2 cancer cell line is an essential element in liver cancer research too.
The advancement of cancer cell culture becomes an indispensible tool to study the biochemistry and molecular biology which closely related to the individual cancer types. This helps us to understand more the differences between normal cell and the cancer cell in terms of physiology, morphology and characteristic. Moreover, the success of cancer cell culture enables the cancer researchers to explore in depth of a complex disease like cancer. The researchers can observe closely to the behaviour of the cancer cell in vitro.
Cell Culture Language
Before we can go further on the cancer cell culture, we have to know some terms which are specifically used in this field so that we can easily understand the meaning of the terms while discussing this topic further.
| Term | Definition |
| Cell culture | Grow and maintain of dissociated cells in culture |
| Tissue culture | Grow and maintain of tissue explants in culture |
| Cell line | A culture that is subcultured from the first primary culture |
| Finite cell line | A cell line with a finite lifespan and will undergo senescence at the end of the lifespan |
| Continuous cell line | A cell line with infinite lifespan and continue to grow |
| Primary culture | The first culture derived from in vivo material |
| Clone | The progeny isolated from a single cell |
| Lag phase of growth | The first phase of growth when cells are subcultured |
| Log phase of growth | The fastest growth phase and when culture shows exponential growth |
| Plateau phase of growth | Phase when cell become confluent |
| Population doubling time | Time for cell to replicate the number |
| Cell banks | Repositories of cancer cell lines and related materials |
| Substrate | The matrix on which a culture is grown |
| Passage | Subculture of cells from one container to another |
| Confluent | Situation when the cells completely cover the substrate |
In conclusion, there are a lot more basic concepts that we need to master on cancer cell culture. I hope that this basic introduction of cell culture can really help us to understand the concept better. Next, I will try to find out some information about the history of cell culture and publish in this website.
Reference: “Cancer Cell Culture” by Simon P. Langdon
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