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Department of Natural Sciences

Cell culture

fb05_bio_cell_culture.jpg (DE)

Lecture

Compulsory course

  • in BSc Applied Biology, 4th Semester
  • 3 h/week (1L/2P)
  • Credits: 3 ECTS

 

 

Learning outcomes:

At the end of the lecture the students are able:

  • to know the cell culture equipment
  • to know how to get information about cell lines and order them
  • to discriminate cell lines from primary cells and lab scale from technical scale
  • to recognize chromosome banding patterns
  • to discriminate contaminations and their sources
  • to know the basic of apoptosis

Content:

  • Basics of cell- and tissue culture; appropriate handling of cell culture equipment
  • Sterile techniques and sterile working
  • Biology of cultivated cells; cultivation of primary cells; cloning and characterization of cell lines; cultivation and sub cultivation of cell lines; techniques of quantification of eukaryotic cells
  • “Scale-Up” of cell cultures
  • Contaminations in cell culture: Detection, control and prophylaxis
  • Transformation of cells and tumour cells
  • Stem cells and differentiation
  • Karyotyping
  • Cell death: apoptosis and necrosis

Internship

Learning outcomes:

At the end of the laboratory course the students are able:

  • to use the cell culture equipment correctly
  • to work sterile in cell culture
  • to in vitro cultivate and sub cultivate monolayer and suspension cells
  • to recognize and test for contaminations
  • to perform in vitro gene transfer into eukaryotic cells

Content:

  • Permanent cell culture of monolayer and suspension cells with splitting, freezing and thawing of the cells
  • RT-PCR and nested PCR for detection of mycoplasma infection
  • Gene transfer into eukaryotic cells and use of reporter genes

Requirements

General Safety Instruction

Recommendations: Passing of the modules of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd semester

 

 

Passing of module – graded

The final mark of the module consists of:

  1. a written test composed of questions to the content of the lecture and the provided protocol for the practical part. The written test must be passed with at least 50 % of the possible points and counts 50 % of the final mark.
  2. the correct execution of the experiments in the laboratory which counts 20 % of the final mark.

Writing the minutes of the experiments which counts 30 % of the final mark.

Literature

  • R.I. Freshney; Culture of Animal Cells; ISBN 0-471-34889-9; Wiley-Liss
  • J. Walker; Methods in Molecular Biology: Basic Cell Culture Protocols; ISBN 0-89603-384-8; Humana Press
  • T. Lindl; Zell- und Gewebekultur (6th ed.); ISBN 3-82-74-1194-7; Spektrum Verlag 

Links