Abstract
Immortalized cell lines provide an easy and convenient option for analysis of biological systems compared to clinical specimens. Cell culture has gained wide popularity in the study of cancer, because of the innate continuously proliferating nature of these cell lines. Cancer cell lines are obtained by the enzymatic digestion or explant growth of tumour specimens. The main advantage of using cell lines for such research is the immortal nature of the cell lines, enabling them to be continuously cultured, distributed and studied in many labs and to act as a reliable platform for comparison of results, before advancing research to the next level. Another advantage of performing research on cell lines is ease of handling and storage. Cell lines are cultured in flasks under well-controlled nutritional and environmentalal conditions and this ensures a greater degree of reproducibility in the results. Some assays require large amount of material; with cell line models, this is generally not a constraint. Cells can be stored indefinitely in liquid nitrogen and can be used when needed. Apart from the ease in maintenance and access, cell lines offer a convenient platform for genetic manipulation of cells. Many recent studies in cancer have centered on functional aspects of gene expression changes. Cell lines offer a realistic platform to knock-down or over-express genes of interest. Due to the tremendous benefits of working on cell lines, they have dramatically contributed to basic research in cancer biology.
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Mehta, J.P., O’Driscoll, L., Barron, N., Clynes, M., Doolan, P. (2010). Translating In Vitro Cell Lines Result into Clinical Practice. In: Hayat, M. (eds) Methods of Cancer Diagnosis, Therapy, and Prognosis. Methods of Cancer Diagnosis, Therapy and Prognosis, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3186-0_13
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