Primary cells and cell lines are essential tools in biomedical research but they exhibit critical differences. Understanding the differences is necessary for choosing the right cells for your application.
Primary cells, isolated directly from tissues, offer a rich understanding of donors, allowing researchers to consider factors like age, medical history, and race in their experimental setup. Primary cells resemble the tissue from which they were acquired and have low levels of genetic mutations but cannot be passaged indefinitely. Despite their limited lifespan, primary cells capture the complexity of living tissues, crucial for personalized medicine.
Conversely, cell lines, which are continually passaged and homogenized over time, are used for convenience as they are easy to handle and widely published but they sacrifice biological relevance. Continuous cell lines (mostly derived from tumor tissue), capable of indefinite proliferation, lack the authentic characteristics of the original tissue due to genetic mutations. While widely used for ease, cell lines fall short in mimicking in vivo environments, with serial passaging inducing variations that may lead to misleading results .