The use of drosophila cell cultures in studies of differentiation

Abstract

In many ways, this session of our symposium marks the coming of age of insect cell-culture techniques. The topics which are to be discussed justify this statement: differentiation, cell biology, secretory processes, and virus research. The discipline has passed through the stage of technical development and is turning its attention to problems of general biological importance. This is not to say that problems of technique do not persist. The number of insect species for which cell culture has been achieved is still severely limited. The problems of choice of suitable tissue for primary culture and of the development of appropriate media are still critical. Cloning techniques are still in their infancy. Nevertheless, a sufficient technical base already is available for profitable exploitation. Our work with Drosophila cell cultures illustrates this point. We undertook this work not out of an interest in cell culture