Cell lines

Meaning

A cell line is a population of cells that can maintain in vitro culture for an extended period of time, and is usually clonal, meaning that the entire population originated from a single, common ancestor cell. ¹

Model

A cell line in Chemotion ELN is divided into a conceptual and a physical part. The conceptual part describes general information like the name of the cell line, the origin or the source organism. The physical part describes a concrete realization of the conceptual part and can be seen as a real object with properties like number, location or current passage. Multiple physical objects can share the same conceptual part.

Representation in ELN

Cell lines are represented and treated analogously to other elements (Sample, Reaction, ... )

Tabular form

1. Group of cell line samples of a cell line concept. It is uniquely identified by the cell line name and the source. Additional information can be made visible or hidden by toggling button

2. Button to create a sample of the current cell line concept. All properties of the current concept are filled in automatically. 3. Button to hide or show additional information 4. Button to show or hide elements of the group

All other buttons or functionalities (such as the time restriction of the cell lines, visibility/position of the element tab) function in the same way as the other elements of the ELN.

Detailed view

Properties tab

The properties tab describes the conceptual properties of the cell lines (common properties) as well as the physical properties (item specific properties).

The following properties can be defined in the common properties area:

property name	description	optional
cell line name	the name of the cell line	no
source	the source of the original cell line	no
disease	Disease which is present in the cells	yes
organism	Donor organism of the cells	yes
tissue	tissue from which the cells are extracted	yes
growth medium		yes
mutation	any known mutation of the cell line	yes
variant	any variant of the cell line	yes
biosafety level	the biosafety level of the cells	no
cryopreservation medium		yes
opt. growth temperature	in degrees celsius	yes
gender	gender of the donor organism	yes
cell type	type of the cell	yes
description	any additional information	yes

When selecting the name of the cell lines, the user is supported by a pre-selection of existing cell lines. It is also possible to create new cell line names.

The following properties can be defined in the item specific properties area:

property name	description	optional
amount	numerical or scientific notation	yes
unit	predefined or custom unit of amount	yes
contamination	any known contamination of cell line sample	yes
name of specific probe	can be used to identify specific probes	yes
description	any additional information	yes

The representation of the amount can be switched with the button.

Analyses tab

The analysis tab works in exactly the same way as for other elements, with one exception. Instead of the Chemical Methods Ontology for the method, terms from the BioAssayOntology are used.²

References tab

Instead of the literature categories (cited own work, cited reference and referring to) the user can add the literature to the categories official literature and additional literature. The references are linked to the conceptual part of the cell line instead to the physical sample.

Creation of cell line samples

Cell lines can be generated in several ways:

1. By selecting a collection, a new cell line can be created in this collection using the button in the top menu.

2. The button can be used to create a new sample for an existing cell line. To do this, the collection of the cell line sample must be active.

3. By importing a collection with cell lines, cell line samples can be created.

Import/Export

Collections with cell lines can be exported and imported as with other elements.

Search

Cell lines can be searched for and found using the basic search. The following properties are taken into account in the search: name of the cell line and the specific name of the sample.

Sources

[1] Young, M. (2019). Comprehensive Biotechnology (3rd edition)

[2] http://bioassayontology.org/bioassayontology/