Generation of cell lines for In vitro Immunization

In our current project we are working on the generation of immortal immune cell lines in order to improve our In vitro Immunization approach. The use of such cell lines allows the ex vivo induction of an immune response and makes it independent from experimental animals. Thereby the in vitro Immunization represents an alternative to the conventional hybridoma technique because cell lines would provide permanent and limitless numbers of the immune cells needed and could be generated from different host species.

First steps in this direction are the characterization of relevant immune cells, optimization of culture conditions and in vitro differentiation from precursor to mature immune cells.  These steps are important to develop suitable strategies for immortalization.