Cell Line Choice

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The choice of cell line, primary cells, or multicellular developmental model is critical for live cell analysis. Many cellular model systems have particular growth characteristics or behaviors that make them unsuitable for live cell analysis, while others seem ideally suited and can tolerate the sometimes less than ideal “living” conditions often necessary for live cell analysis, particularly for extended time analyses.

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• Primary Cells
• Cell Lines
• Microbial Culture
• Multicellular Developmental models

Primary Cells

Primary cell lines, being extracted directly from tissue, are often an attractive choice in live cell analysis because they are presumably closer to their natural origins and thus may be more relevant in predictive cell culture. There are a large number of primary cultures that can be extracted and maintained from tissues; however, most have similar limitations in growth rate, passaging, and maintaining in vivo-like characteristics. The more passaging that is done, the less a primary cell culture is truly “primary”. They are often less controllable than cell lines so it is widely acknowledged that when using primary cultures, know your source populations well, control their culture environment carefully, and validate their phenotypes periodically (such as with antibody staining patterns and karyotyping).

Example of Primary Cultures Useful for Live Cell Analysis
Cell Type	Origin	Commonly used Species	Sample Application/ Uses
Astrocytes/ Microvascular Endothelial cells	Brain	Mouse / human	Blood brain barrier
Microglia	Brain	Mouse / human	Inflammatory, neurodegeneration
Vascular pericytes	Brain	Rat	Stroke
Oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs)	Brain	Mouse / Human	Myelination, Neural repair, MS
Endothelial and SM cells	Cardiac	Human	CVD
Renal glomerular cells	Kidney	Mouse / Human	Renal disease, Diabetes
Epidermal	Skin	Mouse / Rat / Human	Cancer, transmigration, skin models
Epithelial	Eye / linings	Mouse / Rat / Human	Cancer, Transmigration
Hepatic	Liver	Mouse / Rat / Human	Toxicology, cancer
Mononuclear immune cells	Bone marrow	Mouse / Human	Immune differentiation,response, cancer

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Cell Lines

With the plethora of cell lines available today the choice for investigators is quite large. Many cell lines today have become the “go to” cell line for examining particular cellular events such as apoptosis, or cellular transport. Researchers should certainly consult the growing literature available using live cell analysis and use it for guidance. Instrumentation improvements continue to expand our ability to control and define both the extrinsic and intrinsic factors necessary for even the most sensitive cell cultures.

Example Cell Lines Useful for Live Cell Analysis
Cell Line	Cell Type	Origin	Species	Sample Application/ Uses
B-16	Spindle	Melanoma	Mouse	Cancer, melanoma studies
BAE-1	Endothelial	Aorta endothelium	Bovine	Endothelial barriers
BHK-21	Fibroblast	Kidney	Hamster	Cytoskeletal dynamics
CACO-2	Epithelial	Colon	Human	Transport studies, cell junctions
CHO-K1	Epithelial	Ovary	Hamster	EGFR mutations, Drug transport
HEK293	Epithelial / endothelial	Kidney	Human	RNAi, channels, metabolism, viral infections
HELA	Epithelial	Cervix	Human	Cellular processes, apoptosis, cancer research
Hep G2	Epithelial	Liver	Human	Liver metabolism, cell polarization
L929	Epithelial	Connective tissue	Mouse	Apoptosis, cytokine response
LT2	Epithelial	Pancreas	Human	Cancer, anchorage dependence
MCF-7	Epithelial	Mammary	Human	Apoptosis, cancer, estrogen receptor research
MDCK	Epithelial	Kidney	Dog	Cytokeratin, Cell Junction studies
NIH-3T3	Fibroblast	Embryo	Mouse	Fibroblast metabolism, cell division, cell cycle
PC-12	Aggregate	Adrenal Gland	Rat	Nerve Growth Factor response, neurite formation
PtK2	Epithelial	Kidney	Rat Kangaroo	Mitosis, cytoskeletal studies, intracellular transport
SH-SY5Y	Epithelial	Brain, Neuroblastoma	Human	Neuronal differentiation
Vero	Epithelial	Kidney	Primate	Parasite studies, toxicology
WIF-B2	Epithelial	Liver	Rat	Membrane trafficking / Targeting, polarity
AB9	Fibroblast	Developmental	Zebrafish	Development

See Merck’s extensive line of human cell systems for live cell analysis

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Microbial Culture

Yeast, bacterial, and fungal cultures are also being studied using in live cell platforms for a variety of research topics including host pathogen interactions, infection, toxicology/drug response, chemotaxis/migration, microenvironment dynamics, microbiome, and bacterial or yeast single cell analysis.

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Multicellular Developmental Models

Since the advent of molecular genetics, certain multicellular models have emerged as extremely useful systems for the study of development, genetic manipulations, toxicity, signaling, neural processing, liver and digestive tract function, and behavior.

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