which neuronal cell line is RELATIVELY the cheapest (in terms of cell price itself+medium+additives) and easiest to handle and culture?
But still representative to study the interaction between biomaterials and neuronal cells?
Hey Gloria, it depends on the degree of maturity of the neuronal cells you wish to investigate. Is the species, or the origin (CNS or PNS) critical? If not you can try Neuro2A (murine), PC12 (rat PNS) or SH-SY-5Y (human). All of them are easy to handle and have no special medium requirements. However- neuronal cell lines are never identical with mature neurons also concerning molecules critical for interactions with biomaterials such as NCAMs and so on.
Alternatively, you can try to use commercially avaiable neuronal progenitors and differentiate them towards neuronal differentiation - this approach is more promising, but not that cheap (growth factors, e.g. FGF2 and EGF and supplements such as B27 and N2).
Good luck,
Darius
Hi Gloria,
I agree with Darius that the best approach would be for you to use differentiated neuronal progenitors (or primary neuronal cells, some of which are commerically available) but these approaches are obviously much more expensive than using a cancer cell line; so this is perhaps be the best place to start to get all your protocols established.
I haven't worked with N2a or PC-12, but I have done quite a lot with SH-SY5Y. If you need a human line then this would be a good one to start with.
They're very easy to culture, using the recommended medium (DMEM/Ham's F12 1:1 plus 10% FBS, 2 mM L-glutamine, 1× NEAA and pen-strep if you want). I used to buy the DMEM/Ham's F12 pre-mixed then add the supplements. One of my colleagues has grown them in just DMEM before, too, and they seemed perfectly OK.
For your biomaterials experiments you could look at them in a differentiated, mature neuronal state (then perhaps go on to use primary neurons if your results are good). The review I've linked below summarises well some protocols you can use to differentiate SH-SY5Y down various neuronal lineages.
The only drawback I'd say about SH-SY5Y is that they tend to be rather "clumpy" and sometimes grow on top of each other, making it difficult to get a genuine monolayer from them, but it doesn't seem like this would be a big problem given your intended application.
Finally, I've not used Neuro2a (N2a) myself, but I've heard they are only loosely adherent in standard TC flasks/dishes, which is something to bear in mind. Don't know much about PC-12 but they can be differentiated to a mature neuronal phenotype too, using NGF. I recommend you find someone who's worked with them so you can "compare notes", as it were, before making a decision on what to go with.
Hope that helps, and good luck with your work!
Mark
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