You are a researcher at a small biotech company and your company has just obtain
ID: 260266 • Letter: Y
Question
You are a researcher at a small biotech company and your company has just obtained the license for use of a human GENOMIC DNA fragment putatively encoding a potentially novel protein, which is thought to regulate p53, the known tumor supressor protein. The scientists who originally cloned this GENE fragment HDM5 "claim" that HDM5 shares 90% DNA sequence homology with one of the HDM2 genes (refer to the review Levine & Oren, 2009). They propose that HDM5 may have HDM2-like properties and may be involved in regulating cell proliferation, and thus a good target to potentially develop as a cancer therapy. Your company has asked you to characterize the gene and gene products, as well as to provide an opinion as to its potential human therapeutic uses.
After convincing yourself that this gene is expressed in humans, you now wish to determine the potential function of this protein by preparing cells in culture which express the protein.
e. Would your proposed preparation of transfected cells be a primary cell population, a cell strain or a cell line? Explain.
Explanation / Answer
Technically, a cell strain is a population of cells which has been isolated from a source and cannot be grown for idefinite number of passages in vitro. This means that these cells can never display the cancerous properties which are associated with uncontrolled cellular division for multiple passages. On the other hand, a cell line has been artificially modified for carrying out unlimited number of passages in vitro and hence serve as a better cellular model for testing the anti-cancerous capabilities of novel therapeutics.
Thus, it is highly advisable touse a cell line for this experiment, not a cell strain.
Related Questions
Navigate
Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.