The Different Types Of Cells Grown In Culture

There is such a scientific process known as cell culturing; and many types of cells are grown in culture since early times up to present. From a science dictionary, cell culture is defined as the process by which bacteria or viruses from the tissues and other body fluids (whether eukaryotic or prokaryotic cells) are incubated or grown under controlled conditions. Cells are preserved for the purpose of identification; the history and development of cell culture can be closely identified to that of organ and tissue culture.

The cell culture process lets single cells to perform as free units comparable to microorganisms such as fungus or bacterium. These cells are capable of splitting and they grow its size and can continue to grow in batches until such time that they are controlled by some variables like nutrient depletion. Although this process can involve both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, animal cells are more preferred. It can be traced that during the 50’s animal culture has been a custom lab technique while the preservation of live cells has been discovered during the 19th century.

So much about the history, it will be more exciting to learn about the subject of this culturing… the cells! Although the culture process normally consists of only one type of cells, there are also mixed cell culture processes; these are specifically common in wastewater treatment and food sciences related studies.

What are the types of the cells that are grown for this cell culture process? The cells that can be obtained from the single parent cell can be homogenous or identical genetically (this is known as clone); it can however show some genetic differences. Generally, there are three types of cells that can be grown in culture the plant, mammalian and non mammalian cells.

Mammalian cells are harder to grow and fragile than other types of cell; however large scale culturing of these cells can be advantageous to the economy since it provides production of expensive or difficult to extract kinds of protein. Animal cells, normal and cancer cells are some examples of mammalian cells that are grown in culture.

Animal cells tend to be more difficult to culture since they usually grow only when fastened to specially coated solid surfaces and they need much more nutrients compared to other microorganisms. Although there are certain difficulties, different types of animal cells (both differentiated and undifferentiated) can all be cultured successfully. The types of animal cells grown in culture are usually those coming from monkey, hamster, guinea pig, chicken, sheep, swine, turkey, and other insect cells.

Although cancer and normal cells can be both cultured in vitro in a laboratory, they can behave quite differently from one another. Normal cells pass through a process called replicative senescence, in this course, the cells undergo through a number of cell divisions (the limit is about 70 times) before they loss their vigor and eventually die. Cancer cells on the other hand can be immortal because they can proliferate in an indefinite time in culture. The most common example are Hela cells which are cultured around the world. These cells are extracted from the cervix of a woman who died from cancer almost half century ago.

Specifically, there are many cancer cells that can be grown in culture. To cite a few, these are pancreas, breast cancer, prostate cancer, embryonic, cardiac, liver, kidney, gastric, retinal, lung and a whole lot more stern human cells. The most common example of normal cells that are grown in culture is yeast. Plants’ cells are also grown in culture, some examples are protoplasts.

You may now wonder why all these types of cells are grown in culture. The process is carried out due to multiple reasons such as investigation of biochemistry and physiology of cells (for example: cell metabolism). It is also used to test the effect of drugs and other chemical compounds on a specific cell types (for example: cancerous or normal cell). The process is also done to examine the parallel or sequential combination of different types of cells in generating artificial tissues (for example: artificial skin). Last but not the least; cell culture is used in synthesizing the valuable biologicals which consist of specific viruses or proteins coming from large scale cultures. These biologicals need cells for propagation (for example therapeutic proteins) As such, cells are very useful in the process of cell culture. It is contributory to certain scientific and economic processes that are beneficial for all living and non living things. Different cells act differently and are treated with various methods. Simple human being cannot fully understand the specifics, but we must always believe that however tiny or unnecessary cells may seem, they can always add vitality to our lives in one way or another.