Question

• Describe why it is difficult to establish cell lines from cancer cells and why experiments done exclusively with cells lines may give different results, especially in terms of treatments, than what is seen in animal models or clinical trials.

Answer 1

It is very difficult to establish stable cell lines with cancer cells because cancer cells show genome instability, constant genetic variation, and accumulation of mutations. So, progeny cells differ from the progeny in each cell division.

This is also the reason for the heterogeneity/inconsistency in the results obtained from cell-line studies.

One cell line may behave differently from the other depending upon its cellular and genomic status.

Hence it is highly suggested to analyze these results carefully and confirm them by multiple experiments.

On the other hand, invivo experiments provide highly reliable results.