Section7:Cell Culture Glossary

From Assay Guidance Wiki

Many of these definitions were obtained from Life Technologies, Inc. Cell Culture Course

Cell Culture – Establishment and maintenance of cultures derived from dispersed cells taken from original tissues, primary culture, or from a cell line or cell strain.

Cell Line – Immortalized cell, which have undergone transformation and can be passed indefinitely in culture.

Cell Strain – Cells which can be passed repeatedly but only for a limited number of passages.

Cell Clones – Individual cells separated from the population and allowed to grow.

Primary Culture – Cells resulting from the seeding of dissociated tissues, i.e. Huvec cells. Primary cultures often lose their phenotype and genotypes within several passages.

Cell Passage – The splitting (dilution) and subsequent redistribution of a monolayer or cell suspension into culture vessels containing fresh media.

Confluency – The confluency of a culture in a T flask or in a plate or dish is based on the amount of space between the cells. The confluency of the culture often influences the growth of the culture and expression.

Anchorage Dependent (Attached) Cells – Cells which require a substratum to divide and produce a monolayer.

Transient Transfection – The introduction of foreign DNA into a cell to allow the expression of the DNA into the host cell. Protocols are available for opening transient “holes”in the cell membranes allowing plasmids, or siRNA to enter the cell. Cells capable of being transfected or often referred to as “competent cells”. The DNA is not incorporated into the genome therefore, making the event transient referring to the transfection as a transient transfection.

Stable Cell Line – The selection of a stably transfected cell is where the transiently transfected cells are transfected with a co-expressed selection marker. Typical systems that exist include resistance to antibotics such as neomycin phosphotransferase, conferring resistance to G418, etc. The culturing of the cells can be done as a mixed population or by single cell culture to obtain cell clones from one single integration event.

Monolayer – A layer of cells one cell thick, grown in a culture.

Suspension Culture – Cells which do not require attachment to substratum to grow, i.e. anchorage independent. Cell culture derived from blood are typically grown in suspension. Cells can grow as single cells or clumps. To subculture the cultures which grow as single cells they can be diluted. However, the cultures containing clumps need to have the clumps disasociated prior to subculturing of the culture.

Density-Dependent Inhibition of Growth – Reduced response of cells upon reaching a threshold density. These Cells recognize the boundaries of neighbor cells upon confluence and respond, depending on growth patterns, by forming a monolayer. Usually these cells transit through the cell cycle at reduce rate (grow slower).

Differentiation – Property of cells to exhibit tissue-specific differentiated properties in culture.

Hatch – To bring cells out of the freezer; to start a culture from a freezer stock.

Thaw – Same as hatch.

Defreeze (Defroze) – Same as hatch.

Split – To subculture/passage cells; see cell passage.

Pass – See cell passage.

Carry – To maintain a cell line by subculturing in tissue culture medium containing nutrients that will maintain the phenotype and genotype of the cell line.

Plate – To aliquot cells into microtiter plates; plates can be 6, 12, 96, 384, or 1536 well; as opposed to dishes of either circular or rectangular shape, commonly a 500 cm2 culture dish.