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I'm not sure about chicken cells but my experience with growing human cells (WI-38 fibroblasts)[1] is that they want to grow in a monolayer. The way we grew th
by raylad 3y ago
I'm not sure about chicken cells but my experience with growing human cells (WI-38 fibroblasts)[1] is that they want to grow in a monolayer.
The way we grew them normally was in those roller bottles [2]: you have some tissue culture medium in the bottle (containing fetal calf serum, which is still required to grow mammalian cells AFAIK, another reason most of these companies can't do what they say) and other components. Then the bottles are put on their sides on a roller mechanism, in an incubator with a controlled CO2 concentration.
The cells want to grow in a one-cell-thick monolayer all over the inside of the bottle. What they won't do is to grow a double layer. This is because they have "contact inhibition" which is a major mechanism for preventing tumor-like growth: when cells are touching each other, they stop dividing.
So these guys are trying to grow tissue and what they seem to be doing instead is growing monolayers just like this on the inside of roller bottles, scraping them off, then putting them together again.
One thing that disturbed me was that they need to coat the bottles with porcine gelatin. In that case, a lot of those "chicken" cutlets are actually pork!
[1] WI-38 cells: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WI-38 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WI-38
[2] Tissue culture in roller bottles (yes, the medium is red at least for mammalian cells): https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-hgsfepq18i/images/stencil/1280x1280/products/3810/5921/580851__36040.1564441169.1280.1280__01908.1564441878.jpg?c=2 https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-hgsfepq18i/images/stencil/12...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- papertigerau 3y agoYour experience matches with what I've seen. If you give the cells something spherical [1] to adhere to then you can achieve a higher yield, but still only a monolayer. [1] https://smartmcs.com.au/what-is-microcarrier/ https://smartmcs.com.au/what-is-microcarrier/
- nicoburns 3y ago> The cells want to grow in a one-cell-thick monolayer all over the inside of the bottle. What they won't do is to grow a double layer. This is because they have "contact inhibition" which is a major mechanism for preventing tumor-like growth: when cells are touching each other, they stop dividing. How does that work inside the human body, where presumably they do form 3D structures?
- jojobas 3y agoTumors grow when various inhibition mechanisms fail.
- civilitty 3y agoIt's incredibly complicated and every type of tissue has it's own specific mechanisms for forming it's 3D structure but the short answer is that there is an "extracellular matrix" that forms a network of macromolecules using collagen, elastin, fibronectin, and a bunch more signaling and structural proteins that organize cell growth. The ECM starts developing in the fetus and figuring out how it grows from a few cells into a bunch of differentiated organs, muscles, bone, etc. is a core problem in embryology (biology in general, really). If we knew enough to make proper meat, we'd probably be steps away from a Jurassic park scenario.
- finite_depth 3y ago[dead]
- Loughla 3y ago>when cells are touching each other, they stop dividing. I might be very stupid, but if this is a thing, how do we grow? Aren't, for example, bone cells always touching other cells?
- xmcqdpt2 3y agoAFAIK the specific patterning and asymmetry of surrounding cells is what convinced the cells to form organs. The inhibition stops random cells in media from forming a big randomly configured organ, ie a tumor. Here is a paper about it, https://febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/febs.14694 https://febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/febs.14...
- jiggawatts 3y agoSurely they would be using immortal cancer cells? Those are used in human cell cultures because they conveniently have unbounded growth.
- raylad 3y agoThat would be a Bad Idea: if anyone ate raw cancer cells they could potentially form a tumor if they got into a cut and survived.
- jiggawatts 3y agoOnly if you're eating human meat... cloned from you or your twin.
- JetSpiegel 3y agoDo you want to taste a McChicken made from pure chicken cancer?