Apart from fibroblast cell lines like IMR-90 etc, are there any good human cell lines that are not derived from a tumour. I'm interested in cell lines that can undergo quiescence cell cycle arrest and senescence or show contact-inhibition. Could be immortalized or not but I'm not interested in primary cells that cannot be cultivated long term either.
For "proof of principle" experiments, fibroblasts such as IMR90, HDFs, MRC5, WI38 are often used as they grow great in culture and cell media is cheap. Otherwise you can use other primary cells such as endothelial cells (i.e. HUVECs) but the media is more expensive and they do not proliferate long in culture.
I use HDFs for cell senescence related work and for inducing quiescence either by contact inhibition or low serum media.
MCF-10A, MCF-12A - immortalized normal human breast epithelial cell lines. Media (DMEM/F12 with 5% of horse serum) needs some additional factors: Insulin, EGF, Cholera toxin, and Hydrocortisone.
HuLi human limbal cells can be cultivated in simple medium such as DMEM or RPMI.
HaCaT cells are a spontaneously immortalized, human keratinocyte line (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24155234). They can undergo quiescence cell cycle arrest and show contact-inhibition, but they do not exhibit senescence. They are cultured in standard DMEM, unless you would like to de-differentiate them (see the above reference).
The ATTC carries a considerable collection of normal diploid human cell lines subject to the Hayflick limit. Check their catalog of cell lines for other features advantageous for your research questions.
Cells exfoliated from the human colonic mucosa undergo dedifferentiation into gastrointestinal progenitor cells (transit cells). These cells can be isolated from a small pellet (size of a pea) of fresh stool by a procedure described in www.noninvasivetech.com They can be grown for several generations (we have grown them for 90 generations) in a standard stem cell medium without antibiotics. These cells thrive only in the presence of a small number of commensal microflora!
Hi,
Are MCF-10A derived from cancer cells? What do you mean by immortalized?
Thank you
You may also consider HEK293 cells, derived from human embryonic kidney. They were immortalized by Adenovirus sequences, so they're not entirely normal, but do not derive from a tumor. Easy to grow in DMEM and easy to transfect.
Hello Lee Siggens
Better yet, you can use MCF-10A and MCF-12A cell lines, which are immortalized normal human breast epithelial cell lines.
For the MCF-10A cell line, the base medium for this cell line (MEBM) along with the additives can be obtained from Lonza/Clonetics Corporation as a kit. To make the complete growth medium, you will need to add the following components to the kit, 100 ng/ml cholera toxin. Do not filter the complete medium.
For the MCF-12A cell line, a 1:1 mixture of Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium and Ham's F12K medium, 20 ng/ml human epidermal growth factor, 100 ng/ml cholera toxin, 0.01 mg/ml bovine insulin, and 500 ng/ml hydrocortisone, 5%; horse serum.
Also, you can use primary HUVEC cell lines, but that is a little bit expensive. The complete media for this cell line is F-12K nutrient mixture supplemented with 10% FBS, Heparin sodium salt 0.1 mg/mL, ECGS 30 mg/mL. But after certain passage numbers, this cell line does not increase to your desired level.
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