Growing cells in the laboratory is not "natural".?

Question

Explain why this statement is true.

Answer 1

Natural would be in the cells original structure, plant or animal,

Human cells growing in a human body, plant cells growing in the plant.

For cells to grow in the lab your have to manipulate them by adding special substances and the like that are not natural to the host.

Answer 2

Two big factors here-

Usually you grow the cells with serum, often 5-10% FBS is used, which, unless you are growing cow cells, is a different species. It usually works fine, but its just not ideal. Also, there is going to be a relativley constant enviornment, there may be factors added, but in vivo, it wouldn't be so static.

Secondly, the cells are often grown "in 2D" as a monolayer attached to plastic. It works, but its not the same as growing in 3D, or having a real substrate to attach to. You can grow cells in agar or on collagen/matrix gels, and if you compare the same cells grown on plastic versus those grown on a matrix, there are often significant differences between the cells- growth rate, morphology, expressed proteins, etc... change when the cells are on a natural substrate rather than polystyrene.

Answer 3

yes the laboratory cells are NOT natural ones!
the cells have limited capacity to divide for example they can only divide 40 times and no more they maybe undergo Apoptosis (Programed Cell Death) in lab instead cytologist use immortal Cell line which are derived from cancer cells just like HeLa cell line!

Answer 4

The statement is not necessarily true -- it depends on the definition of "natural". In any event, it is irrelevant: naturalness is not in any sense a useful trait.