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Development of primary cell cultures using hemocytes and phagocytic tissue cells of Locusta migratoria: an application for locust immunity studies

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Abstract

Insect cell cultures played central roles in unraveling many insect physiological and immunological processes. Regardless, despite imminent needs, insect cell lines were developed primarily from Dipteran and Lepidopteran orders, leaving many important insects such as Orthopteran locusts under-represented. Besides the lack of cell lines, the slow progress in development of in vitro techniques is attributed to poor communications between different laboratories regarding optimized primary cell cultures. Therefore, we report here about methods developed for primary cell culture of Locusta migratoria hemocyte and phagocytic tissue cells by which we could maintain viable hemocytes in vitro for over 5 d and phagocytic tissue cells for over 12 d. 2-Mercaptoethanol and phenyl-thiourea supplements in Grace’s medium together with addition of fetal bovine serum 30 min after cell seeding resulted in a successful setup of the primary cell cultures and a week-long survival of the hemocytes and phagocytic tissue cells in vitro.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by KU Leuven Research Foundation (GOA/11/002). The authors gratefully thank Roger Jonckers and Evelien Herinckx for caring the locust breeding and Ria Vanlaer for technical assistance. We thank the laboratory of Prof. Lieve Van Mellaert (Rega Institute, KU Leuven) for providing us with heat-deactivated Candida albicans. We would like to extend also our appreciation to the anonymous reviewers and associate editor for their constructive comments which made this article acceptable for publication in this journal.

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  1. Insect Physiology and Molecular Ethology Research Group, Division of Animal Physiology and Neurobiology, Biology Department, KU Leuven, Naamsestraat 59, 3000, Leuven, Belgium

    Tewodros Firdissa Duressa & Roger Huybrechts

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  1. Tewodros Firdissa Duressa
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  2. Roger Huybrechts
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Correspondence to Roger Huybrechts.

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Editor: Tetsuji Okamoto

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Duressa, T.F., Huybrechts, R. Development of primary cell cultures using hemocytes and phagocytic tissue cells of Locusta migratoria: an application for locust immunity studies. In Vitro Cell.Dev.Biol.-Animal 52, 100–106 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11626-015-9952-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11626-015-9952-5

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