In biomedical research and development, scientists mostly use cultured cell lines as models because they offer easy, inexpensive, and stable platforms. However, cell lines fail to grasp the microenvironment physiology that occurs in vivo. Human primary cells come to the rescue in this situation! Primary cell culture portrays the complex physiological cell behavior and therefore represents the in vivo microenvironment better. Once you decide on your hypothesis, it is up to your research requirement whether to use human primary cells or immortal cell lines to achieve the required research efficacy.
Human primary cells closely represent the human in vivo physiology and in the case of establishing experiment results, human primary cells offer a better and relevant cell culture model.
Types of Primary Cells
The figure above shows the different types of primary cells examples that can be isolated from a wide variety of body tissues. Human primary cells are isolated directly from body tissues and therefore retain the functional and morphological characteristics of their origin tissue. In comparison, several types of cell lines, that are formed by immortalizing human primary cells, display differences in morphological and genetic characteristics.
Human Primary Cells Vs Cell Lines
Human primary cells don’t live forever and undergo senescence. They have limited potential of self-renewal and differentiation. Late passages of human primary cells show morphological and functional changes and therefore behave differently under similar culture conditions. Different types of cell lines, on the other hand, can run for longer passages and do not undergo senescence. But identification of the authenticity of cell lines is a difficult task. In other aspects, cell lines are cost-effective and easy to culture or expand as compared to human primary cells. For some research experiments, this is supposed to be an added advantage.
Human primary cell cultures are easy to get contaminated and not easy to expand. Primary cell cultures often need experienced hands for good culturing practice. Other than these major points of difference, there are other small yet significant differences between human primary cells and cell lines, which as mentioned in the table below:
Last but not the least, cell lines are easy to procure but human primary cells lack easy availability owing to difficulty in their maintenance and culturing. But Kosheeka breaches this limitation with its wide variety of tissue-specific and species-specific primary cells for delivery. Visit their website at https://kosheeka.com/ or contact info@kosheeka.com for further inquiries.