Cell lines can often be most easily generated from cancer cells, but these cultures—referred to as transformed cell lines—differ from those prepared from normal cells in several ways. Transformed cell lines often grow without attaching to a surface, for example, and they can proliferate to a much higher density in a culture dish. Similar properties can be induced experimentally in normal cells by transforming them with a tumor-inducing virus or chemical. The resulting transformed cell lines can usually cause tumors if injected into a susceptible animal.
Transformed and nontransformed cell lines are extremely useful in cell research as sources of very large numbers of cells of a uniform type, especially since they can be stored in liquid nitrogen at –196°C for an indefinite period and retain their viability when thawed. It is important to keep in mind, however, that cell lines nearly always differ in important ways from their normal progenitors in the tissues from which they were derived.
Some widely used cell lines are listed in Table 8–1. Different lines have different advantages; for example, the PtK epithelial cell lines derived from the rat 444 Chapter 8: Analyzing Cells, Molecules, and Systems kangaroo, unlike many other cell types, remain flat during mitosis, allowing the mitotic apparatus to be readily observed in action.
As we see throughout this book, antibodies are particularly useful tools for cell biology. Their great specificity allows precise visualization of selected proteins among the many thousands that each cell typically produces. Antibodies are often produced by inoculating animals with the protein of interest and subsequently isolating the antibodies specific to that protein from the serum of the animal. However, only limited quantities of antibodies can be obtained from a single inoculated animal, and the antibodies produced will be a heterogeneous mixture of antibodies that recognize a variety of different antigenic sites on a macromolecule that differs from animal to animal. Moreover, antibodies specific for the antigen will constitute only a fraction of the antibodies found in the serum. An alternative technology, which allows the production of an unlimited quantity of identical antibodies and greatly increases the specificity and convenience of antibody-based methods, is the production of monoclonal antibodies by hybridoma cell lines.
This technology, developed in 1975, revolutionized the production of antibodies for use as tools in cell biology, as well as for the diagnosis and treatment of certain diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis and cancer. The procedure requires hybrid cell technology (Figure 8–4), and it involves propagating a clone of cells from a single antibody-secreting B lymphocyte to obtain a homogeneous preparation of antibodies in large quantities. B lymphocytes normally have a limited life-span in culture, but individual antibody-producing B lymphocytes from an immunized mouse, when fused with cells derived from a transformed B lymphocyte cell line, can give rise to hybrids that have both the ability to make a particular antibody and the ability to multiply indefinitely in culture. These hybridomas are propagated as individual clones, each of which provides a permanent and stable source of a single type of monoclonal antibody. Each type of monoclonal antibody recognizes a single type of antigenic site—for example, a particular cluster of five or six amino acid side chains on the surface of a protein. Their uniform specificity makes monoclonal antibodies much more useful than conventional antisera for many purposes.
An important advantage of the hybridoma technique is that monoclonal antibodies can be made against molecules that constitute only a minor component of a complex mixture. In an ordinary antiserum made against such a mixture, the proportion of antibody molecules that recognize the minor component would be too small to be useful. But if the B lymphocytes that produce the various components of this antiserum are made into hybridomas, it becomes possible to screen individual hybridoma clones from the large mixture to select one that produces the desired type of monoclonal antibody and to propagate the selected hybridoma
SUSPENSION OF TWO CELL three clones of hybrid cellsTYPES CENTRIFUGED WITH A FUSING AGENT ADDED SELECTIVE MEDIUM