Development and characterization of insect cell lines.

With the wide availability of insect cell culture media, it can generally be considered a routine process to develop new cell lines. Exceptions to this statement do exist, of course. Difficulties may arise when attempting to culture a specific cell type. For example, while there are a few cell lines from insect fat body and at least one from the midgut, it may not be possible to obtain cell lines from these tissues from all insect species due to terminal differentiation and other factors. Also, researchers have desired cell lines from certain species, such as the honey bee, for which no success has been obtained. As in the early days of tissue culture, it is difficult to discern why negative results occur. However, as more is learned about the physiology and nutrition of various insects and tissues, we may get clues which will help solve these questions.The remaining chapters in this book will provide the reader with exciting uses for insect cell culture. As I mentioned earlier, the baculovirus expression vector system has provided a stimulus to the field of insect cell culture not seen previously.