Monthly Archives: December 2015

When working with primary cells, it is important to remember that they are not cell lines and cannot be treated the same. Because ScienCell has extensively working with primary cells, we are very familiar with the common problems researchers encounter when culturing them. Here are six common mistakes that are made with primary cells and how to correct these mistakes.

Mistake #1: Thawing a vial of primary cells in a water bath for an extended period of time

Correction #1: Primary cells are very sensitive to the thawing process so it is important that the vial be placed in a 37^oC water bath, held and rotated gently until the contents are just thawed. Then remove the vial from the water bath promptly and transfer in into a sterile hood. Make sure your culture vessel is ready before thawing so the cells can immediately be seeded and placed in the incubator.

Mistake #2: Centrifuging primary cells directly after thawing a vial

Correction #2: We do not recommend centrifuging the cells after

CD-1 IGS mice are outbred mice derived from a group of outbred Swiss mice developed at the Anti-Cancer Center in Lausanne, Switzerland. They were imported to the US in 1926 and to Charles River in 1959.  The CD-1 IGS mice are generally used for genetics, toxicology, pharmacology, and aging research. C57BL/6 mice are inbred mice developed by C.C. Little in 1921 at The Bussey Institute for Research in Applied Biology.

The C57BL/6 mice are used for transgenic and knockout model development (the wild-type C57BL/6 mice are a good control), as well as, obesity and immunological studies. There are advantages to using either outbred or inbred mouse strains depending on your research. Outbred mice have more genetic diversity, are more robust, and produce larger litter sizes than inbred mice. Inbred mice are almost genetically identical, which allows for easier interpretation of experiments.

It is important to keep these factors in mind when selecting either CD-1 IGS or C57/BL6 mouse primary