Differentiating primary human cells in rapid-throughput discovery applications.

Primary cultures of human cells provide an increasingly important alternative to using virally transformed or otherwise immortalized cell lines or to using cloned cell lines derived from human or animal tumors. Advances in primary cell culture techniques, media formulations, and other reagents have enabled routine culture of primary cells derived from human tissues for biomedical research and drug discovery approaches such as high content screening. That primary cells retain the phenotypic characteristics of the original tissue is one main advantage over immortalized cell lines. However, securing reliable supplies of primary cells on a large scale has been problematic. Here, two primary differentiating cell types, preadipocytes and preosteoclasts, are described to illustrate the utility of commercially produced cell systems in discovery research and rapid-throughput applications.