In my PhD, I am trying to evaluate the role of macrophages in breast cancer, my supervisor suggested to use macrophages differentiated from Thp1 with PMA, instead of using primary macrophages. Unfortunately these macrophages did not give anything similar to primary macrophages in term of gene expression, I actually got completely different result in comparison with primary ones. Did anybody use them before ? I am a bit scared of carrying on with Thp-1 differentiation to macrophages as they do not have the same characteristic as primary ones.
Hi,
I have used THP-1 but they are good only to learn how to work with monocyte-like cells and make simple experiments, not stand whole your research on this cell line.
As the expression of genes and proteins is different than in normal monocytes and change in high cumulative population doublings, you need stronger stimulus for differentiation and they live practically forever I would suggest, that they are not relevant cells and you get some data, but I would not expect relevant data for clinical practice. With PMA also..
Currently I am starting to work with isolated monocytes and see how different they are. So I would stick to isolated and only if it is not possible to use isolated primary monocytes use THP-1.
Hi!
I have used THP-1 for in vitro infection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Since your research aim is to evaluate the role of macrophages in breast cancer, it is preferable to work with macrophages or monocyte derived macrophages isolated from PBMC.
THP-1 designates a spontaneously immortalized monocyte-like cell line and it is skewed more towards the M2 phenotype. I agree with other suggestions given on this blog to use primary monocytes. You could perform the experiment in both cell lines and compare the results and then you'll have data to convince your PI. Good luck!
Dear All
Many thanks for all your lovely recommendations, yes I completely agree with you and this was my aim since I have started my research but the problem with my supervisor as he doesnt agree to use primary macrophages for some reasons such as difficulty in bleeding people, primary macrophages do not proliferate, and differentiating them takes one week. Therefore, he prefers to complete our exp standing on Thp-1 cells. Thanks
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