What is cell culture？
Cell culture refers to the removal of cells from an animal or plant and their subsequent growth in a favorable artificial environment. The cells may be removed from the tissue directly and disaggregated by enzymatic or mechanical means before cultivation, or they may be derived from a cell line or cell strain that has already been established.
Primary culture
Primary culture refers to the stage of the culture after the cells are isolated from the tissue and proliferated under the appropriate conditions until they occupy all of the available substrate (i.e., reach confluence). At this stage, the cells have to be subcultured (i.e., passaged) by transferring them to a new vessel with fresh growth medium to provide more room for continued growth.
Cell lines
After the first subculture, the primary culture becomes known as a cell line or subclone. Cell lines derived from primary cultures have a limited life span (i.e., they are finite; see below), and as they are passaged, cells with the highest growth capacity predominate, resulting in a degree of genotypic and phenotypic uniformity in the population.
Cell strain
If a subpopulation of a cell line is positively selected from the culture by cloning or some other method, this cell line becomes a cell strain. A cell strain often acquires additional genetic changes after the initiation of the parent line.
Finite vs Continuous Cell Line
Normal cells usually divide only a limited number of times before losing their ability to proliferate, which is a genetically determined event known as senescence; these cell lines are known as finite. However, some cell lines become immortal through a process called transformation, which can occur spontaneously or can be chemically or virally induced. When a finite cell line undergoes transformation and acquires the ability to divide indefinitely, it becomes a continuous cell line.
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