cultured cell
Meaning of cultured cell: A living cell kept and multiplied outside the body, where it can be watched, treated and counted in ways a person cannot be.
Definition of cultured cell
A cultured cell is a human, animal, plant or microbial cell that has been taken out of its original tissue and kept alive in a laboratory vessel. It is supplied with nutrients, warmth and controlled gas so it continues to divide. Cultured cells allow processes to be observed directly and treatments to be tested before any use in living tissue.
What kinds are there?
The main division is between cells taken directly from tissue and cells that have been adapted to grow indefinitely.
| Type | Origin | How long it survives |
|---|---|---|
| Primary cell | Fresh tissue | A limited number of divisions |
| Cell line | Adapted for continuous growth | Indefinitely |
| Stem cell culture | Undifferentiated cells | Long, can be steered into other types |
Primary cells behave more like the tissue they came from, which makes them more informative and more troublesome. A cultured cell line is easier to work with and can be shared between laboratories, but it has changed in the course of becoming immortal.
What are they used for?
Growing viruses is one long-standing use, since a virus cannot reproduce on its own and needs living cells to occupy. Vaccine manufacture depends on this. Cells are also used to test whether a compound is toxic, to study how a gene works when it is switched off, and to produce proteins such as antibodies and hormones in quantity. In diagnostic work a laboratory test may involve growing cells from a sample so that their chromosomes can be examined while they divide.
What are the limitations?
A cell in a flask is not a cell in a body. It sits on plastic rather than among neighbors of other types, receives no blood supply or nerve signals, and is bathed in a nutrient mixture richer than anything a tissue encounters. Behavior drifts with repeated passage, so results from an old culture may differ from an early one. Contamination is a persistent problem in two forms: bacteria and fungi, which are obvious, and mycoplasma, which is invisible and alters results silently. Cross-contamination between cultures has also caused published work to describe the wrong cell type entirely, which is why identity testing is now expected.
Used in a sentence
The compound was screened against cultured cells before animal testing.
Good to know
Cells change with repeated passage and cultures can be misidentified or silently contaminated with mycoplasma, so findings in culture are confirmed in living tissue before being relied on.
Word origin
Where “cultured cell” comes from
Culture comes from the Latin cultura, meaning tending or cultivation, from colere, to till.