Insect cell culture and applications to research and pest management

Abstract

Building on earlier research, insect cell culture began with the successful establishment of one cell line from pupal ovarian tissue. The field has grown to the extent that now over 500 insect cell lines have been established from many insect species representing numerous insect orders and from several different tissue sources. These cell lines are used as research tools in virology, in studies of signaling mechanisms to study insect immunity, hemocyte migration, and to test hypotheses about gene expression, and in screening programs designed to discover new insecticide chemistries. Virology research is revealing fundamentally new information on virus/host cell interactions. Studies in gene expression are uncovering signal transduction pathways that are new to insect science. Research is leading to the development of high-speed screening technologies that are essential in the search for new insect pest management tools. A few insect cell lines are, in routine industrial processes, designed to produce proteins of biomedical significance. Both primary cell cultures and established lines are used in basic biological studies to reveal how insect cells work. This review is designed to briefly cover the history of insect cell culture, recount some recent advances in the field, and offer a vision of the future of insect cell culture.

Establishment of Shrimp Cell Lines: Perception and Orientation

“…The media used for shrimp cell culture development have been mostly the modified commercially available preparations, despite the fact that the media composition happens to be the most important factor which determines the success of any cell line development [60]. To date, a medium exclusively for in vitro growth of shrimp cell cultures has not been designed, and the fact that an appropriate medium is required to establish shrimp cell lines in tune with the quantum change which the Grace's insect cell culture medium [29][30][31][32] has brought about; ever since the publication of Grace's insect cell culture medium, over 500 insect cell lines could be established [53,76]. Likewise, to formulate an exclusive shrimp cell culture medium, indepth analysis of the biochemistry of body fluids [64,74] is the prime requirement.…”

Establishment and Characterization of Permanent Cell Lines from Oryzias dancena Embryos

“…Establishing permanent cell lines in vitro, either spontaneously or intentionally (Freshney, 2010), makes possible identification of the molecular mechanisms underlying a variety of biological functions, as these cell lines provide a readily available, stable and reproducible system for analyzing identical cells that genetically resemble the original tissues and species (Bols et al, 1994;Smith, 2006). Indeed, cell lines established from insects, amphibians, fish, experimental and livestock animals, as well as humans, have been used in many different types of biological studies such as drug discovery, toxicology, functional studies for genes and proteins, cancer research, and tissue engineering (Smagghe et al, 2009;Lakra et al, 2011;Sinzelle et al, 2012;Stacey, 2012). In fish, the first established cell line, RTG-2, was derived from Salmo gairdneri gonads (Wolf and Quimby, 1962), leading to the reported establishment of a total of 283 cell lines as of 2011 (Lakra et al, 2011).…”

Optimization of Insect Cell Based Protein Production Processes - Online Monitoring, Expression Systems, Scale Up

“…These cells are widely used in research. However, the number of cell lines used and engineered for recombinant protein production in routine industrial processes is relatively low [3]. In the following, only the most common insect cell lines utilized for recombinant protein production are introduced.…”