Mammalian Cells, Tissues and Organ Culture: Applications

Abstract

In today’s world, mammalian cell cultures are used to understand various physiological and pathophysiological cell signaling events related to normal as well as various diseased cells such as cancer cells and others. Besides, mammalian cells such as Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells, baby hamster kidney (BHK) cells, human embryonic kidney (HEK) cells, African green monkey kidney (COS) cells, NSO cells, HT1080 cell, and PER-C6 cells (many others too) as well as their culture products (various recombinant proteins) have widespread use in biotechnology, pharmacology, and medicine. The major usefulness of cultured mammalian cells and their products described in this chapter include (i) use as a model system for physiological and pathophysiological studies; (ii) use in experimental drug/toxin research; (iii) use in vaccine production, particularly against pathogenic viruses; (iv) use for various recombinant protein production; (v) in cell therapy; and finally (vi) in gene therapy. The various mammalian cell culture recombinant DNA products described in this chapter are tissue plasminogen activator, urokinase, follicle-stimulating hormone, blood clotting factor VIII, and erythropoietin. All these recombinant proteins exhibit widespread significance in the medical field. In comparison, cell and gene therapy are new fields and their success against various human diseases is substantially in the initial stages.