For our experiments we use THP1 cell lines to manipulate genes and see what happens to their expression of cytokines with and without LPS stimulation. We use this approach since primary monocytes tend to differentiate to macrophages in culture quite rapidly and it is hard to make transduced cell lines.
Now I am wondering in what extend the reaction of THP1s is similar to that of primary monocytes and are there maybe other differences with THP1s that we need to take into account?