Biotechnology and Bioinformatics (1+1)

3.1.3. Types of cell culture

Freshly isolated cells from the parent body undergoing in vitro cultivation is known as primary cultures until they are passaged or sub-cultivated.

They are usually heterogenous, and have a low growth fraction, but are more representative of the cell types in the tissue from which they were derived and in the expression of the tissue specific properties.

After several subcultures a cell line will either die out (finite cell line) or “transform” to become a continuous cell line.