Clinically Relevant Cell Culture Tools for COVID-19 Research

As the global COVID-19 pandemic evolves, researchers worldwide are working hard to study the mechanisms underlying SARS-CoV-2 infection. Thanks to their discoveries, new insights for developing treatments, vaccines and diagnostic tools are being made possible.

During virus infection, the respiratory tract epithelium forms a physical barrier that pathogens encounter. Understanding this barrier is greatly enhanced by having well characterized and standardized cell culture models of the epithelium. The ability to model the different properties and functions of the respiratory tract in vitro is key to successfully translating research findings into real-world medical applications.

At PromoCell, we support researchers in achieving this by providing well characterized and standardized human primary cells isolated from the proximal and distal respiratory tract. We also provide specialty cell culture media matched to each primary cell type. All our customers benefit from personalized technical support from PhD scientists.

Using human primary airway epithelial cells for infection studies with SARS-CoV-2 allows researchers to study how the virus interacts with its natural host. This contrasts with studying the virus in cell lines, which are often derived from tumor tissue and display modified gene and protein expression patterns. Cell lines are therefore unable to give a true insight into how SARS-CoV-2 interacts with human tissue.