I research on breast cancer. I use MCF7 cell line. my supervisor said MCF10A not real normal cell and suggested that I use lymphocyte cell as normal control. Do I use these cells as control cell?
MCF10A is widely used as a normal control for breast cancer cells. MCF10A is a normal breast epithelial cell line. Nothing wrong in using MCF10A as a control for breast cancer. OR, you can use CHO (chinese hamster ovary), NIH-3T3 (fibroblast) cell lines as normal controls.
The choice of control cells depends on the question you try to answer. MCF10A are somehow close to the normal breast epithelial cells and they are widely used as so called "normal" control. However it is also true that MCF10A cells are immortalized cell line, thus, they are not terminally differentiated cells and from that point of view cannot be considered as "completely" normal. Lymphocytes separated from blood are normal( not cancerous) as most of them are terminally differentiated cells and destined to die. If you are going to address a question related to differentiation - than it is possible to use lymphocytes as control cells. However, lymphocytes are very heterogeneous cells, you have to get only one type of them, which is not that easy to do. Considering that it is much easier to use MCF10A as it is supposed to be homogenous cell line.
dear Olga
thank you for answer. Can I used only PBMC cell as normal cell?
yes, I think it is ok to use PBMC ( again - it depends on your aim). Make sure that you have separated only monocytes. It is very often the contaminated (mixed) fraction that gives the results that are hard to explain afterwards. Good luck!
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