This coating layer of cells is called a feeder layer. The reason for having the mouse cells in the bottom of the culture dish is to give the inner cell mass cells a sticky surface to which they can attach. Also, the feeder cells release nutrients into the culture medium. Recently, scientists have begun to devise ways of growing embryonic stem cells without the mouse feeder cells. |
|
Once cell lines are established, or even before that stage, batches of them can be frozen and shipped to other laboratories for further culture and experimentation. |
|
Therefore, an important area of research is understanding the signals in a mature organism that cause a stem cell population to proliferate and remain unspecialized until the cells are needed for repair of a specific tissue. |
|
Scientists are trying to understand two fundamental properties of stem cells that relate to their long-term self-renewal: 1) why can embryonic stem cells proliferate for a year or more in the laboratory without differentiating, but most adult stem cells cannot; and 2) what are the factors in living organisms that normally regulate stem cell proliferation and self-renewal? Discovering the answers to these questions may make it possible to understand how cell proliferation is regulated during normal embryonic development or during the abnormal cell division that leads to cancer. |
|
