cell differentiation and survival - (Feb/13/2008 )

Hello everyone,
I need suggestions for how to make cells differentiated or to affect their viability. For example, the cells differentiate and stop proliferate after a treatment. Or the cells die after the treatment. The methods should be cell type specific. Thank for any help!

check out FDB1 cells. they differentiate in the presence of GM-CFS.
MCF-7 differentiate in the presence of TPA, sodium butyerate, vitamine E., etc etc...
HC11 differentiate when induced with hormones....

there are too many ways to make cells differentiate, or affect the viability.
How about being a bit more specific...
do you want human or mouse cells?
do you want epithelial cells or not?
do you want a cancer cell line, or a "normal" one?

This is just a little bit too open-ended.

V

Thank you vetticus3,
I plan to infect a cell line wih shRNA library. I want to find the genes that can inhibit cell growth under certain conditions, for example, serum starvation or drug treatment. When these genes are knocked down by shRNA, the cells continue to grow regardless of the treatment. My question is what kind of treatment and which cell line is suitable for the experiment?

in our lab we're using a cDNA library and FDB1 cells (looking at what keeps the cells in proliferation mode, rather than differentiating).

nearly all cells (i'd say all, but i don't know for sure) will stop growing in serum starvation. they're starving, of course they're going to stop growing. regardless of what gene you will knockdown, the cells aren't going to grow if you remove serum.

if you do grow the cells in normal media that will induce differentiation, and then look at which gene will prevent differentiation and induce proliferation... it really depends on the type of cell, and how long you want to keep the experiment running for.

the easiest cell line (other's might argue against this) i would think is a blood cell, that is in it's early stages. perhaps an early progenitor cell.

there are quite a few mouse and human cell lines to choose from, and a quick search of pubmed will show a lot of papers.

i'd choose this type of cell line because it would be easy to see the differences between the progenitor cells and the differentiated cells (macrophages and granulocytes, etc)... also, they'd be easy to separate in facs or a sort. and i think they proliferate quickly. and the things required to induce differentiation are more "natural" than using a bunch of chemicals that aren't normally present in a living being (thinking of TPA and NaBu).

and you'd be able to link any data from your experiment to what is known about leukemia and other blood disorders.

V

Dear vetticus3,
Thank you for the very helpful suggestions.