Difference Between Adherent and Suspension Cell Lines

Key Difference – Adherent vs Suspension Cell Lines
 

A cell line is a permanently established cell culture that can be proliferated and grown under special conditions. Several cell lines such as cancer cell lines, hepatocytes and bone marrow cells are maintained as cell lines for the ease of research. Cell lines are prepared from primary cultures, and they can be mainly of two types namely adherent cell cultures and the suspension cell cultures. Thus, the cell lines derived from these cultures are termed as Adherent cell lines and Suspension cell lines. Adherent cell lines are the cell lines, in which the primary cultures are attached to a solid support, and thus they are anchorage-dependent cells. Suspension cell lines are the cell lines in which the cultures are suspended in liquid media, and the cells thus remain in the fluid media. They are not anchorage dependent. The key difference between the Adherent and the Suspension cell lines is the anchorage dependence of the cells. Adherent cell lines need solid support for its growth, thus is anchorage-dependent whereas, suspension cell lines are anchorage-independent and do not need solid support for the growth.

CONTENTS

1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What are Adherent Cell Lines
3. What are Suspension Cell Lines
4. Similarities Between Adherent and Suspension Cell Lines
5. Side by Side Comparison – Adherent vs Suspension Cell Lines in Tabular Form
6. Summary

What are Adherent Cell Lines?

Adherent cell lines are the cell lines that are anchorage dependent. Therefore, these cell lines require stable support for their growth. Most of the vertebrate cells extracted (except for hematopoietic cells) are anchorage dependent. Therefore, most vertebrate cells are cultured along with an adherent that will provide the steady growth of the cells.

Most of the adherent cell lines are established in a tissue culture treated vessel, and their growth is restricted to the area of the vessel or the adherent. When treating the cells for adherent cell line culturing, the cells should be dissociated via trypsinization and then repeated passaging techniques should be applied to establish the adherent cell lines. The common applications of cell lines prepared from adherent cultures are in cytology and in cytogenetics. They are also used for research purposes.

What are Suspension Cell Lines?

Suspension cell lines are anchorage independent. They are derived from the suspension culture that can readily grow in a suspended liquid media. The suspension cell cultures should be continuously agitated to maintain its growth. Human hematopoietic cells are mainly cultured as suspension cultures, and thus maintained as suspension cell lines when they are used for research purposes.

Maintenance of suspension cell lines requires continuous agitation and few passaging procedures. The growth of the suspension cells is limited by the concentration of the cells in the medium. Thus, over time the growth factors and media constituents deplete limiting the growth of the cells.

Suspension cell lines are the most widely used type of primary cell lines in commercial production. Most microbial cells are maintained as suspension cells, where they are used to extract useful secondary metabolites such as antibiotics, vitamins, amino acids and proteins. Suspension cell line cultures yield much higher products than the adherent cell lines and they are less laborious and require less expenditure in comparison to adherent cell lines.

What are the Similarities Between Adherent and Suspension Cell Lines?

• Both Adherent and Suspension cell lines are derived from primary cell cultures.
• Both Adherent and Suspension cell lines require optimum media conditions and growth conditions to allow maximum growth.
• Both Adherent and Suspension cell lines are prepared under in vitro conditions and can be stored under special storage conditions.
• Both Adherent and Suspension cell lines require continuous passaging to increase the yield.
• Both Adherent and Suspension cell lines are used in tissue culture techniques, in pharmacological studies to assess drug metabolism and in disease diagnostics.

What is the Difference Between Adherent and Suspension Cell Lines?

Summary – Adherent vs Suspension Cell Lines

Maintaining cell lines is an important process in cell culturing for animal cell cultures as well as for plant tissue culture. In addition, cell lines are also maintained for microbial cells that are widely used in industrial processes. Cell lines can either be termed as adherent cell lines or suspension cell lines. Adherent cell lines are derived from adherent primary cell cultures, and they are anchorage dependent. Suspension cell lines are derived from suspension primary cell cultures. These cells exist in a fluid medium, and continuous agitation of cells is required for the growth of the cells. This is the difference between adherent cell lines and suspension cell lines.

Reference:

1.“Adherent Cell Culture vs. Suspension Cell Culture.” Thermo Fisher Scientific. Available here 
2. Lonza, Primary Cells vs. Cell Lines. Available here 

Image Courtesy:

1.’Pseudomonas aeruginosa pyocyanin’ By Y tambe,  (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Commons Wikimedia