Large scale animal cell culture is one of the main experimental tools used today by in different fields in biology and biotechnology. The best method for large scale production of biopharmaceutical products such as complex proteins is provides by animal cell cultures. This review describes the common features of how cell culture is carried out as well as a little background on it. Positives and negatives of large scale culture are compared. Problems like shear forces, expenses and batch contaminations and opportunities such as high production, commonly used and long term advantage, are discussed.
Introduction.
In the past 20 years, the biotechnology industry has developed considerably, and continues to grow at a fast rate (Chu and Robinson, 2001). In the industry, animal cell culture has become progressively more popular for the production of bio pharmaceuticals (Eibl et al., 2010). Cultivation of animal cells takes different forms known as cell culture or tissue culture. Cell culture consists of taking cells, tissue or organs from an animal (or a plant) and placing them in an artificial environment in which to stimulate their growth. In this process, the cells' normal connection with surrounding cells is upset. Typically this environment is a liquid or semi-solid medium, contained in a glass or plastic container, which supplies the necessary nutrients for maintaining the cells alive and growing. Organ culture refers to the growth of whole or parts of organs as opposed to separate cells. .
Overview.
The first successful animal cell culture was undertaken by Ross Harrison in 1907. Despite this, it was not until the late 40s and early 50s, that the progress or developments to make cell culture readily available as a tool for scientists took place. Firstly, the development of antibiotics made it easier to protect from contamination inconveniences that plagued previous cell cultures. Secondly, methods were developed to extract cells from culture vessels, such as the use of trypsin, an enzyme required to get endless growing cell lines.
