Improve your success with fish cell lines-small things that matter.

There is a drive towards reducing animal experiments and developing robust biologically relevant in vitro models based on cell lines, including those derived from fish. At the time of writing, Cellosaurus, the knowledge base of current cell lines used in research, listed more than 900 fish cell lines in its database. One of the key challenges facing fish cell biology is the lack of fundamental technical information regarding the isolation, culture, and application of cell lines. Researchers often work in silos, encountering similar technical challenges, each spending significant time and resources overcoming the same issues for which solutions may not be readily accessible. Here, we share some of the key considerations for the isolation, culture, maintenance, and application of fish cell lines in toxicology, which we have encountered over our collective decades of experience.