Studies on a cell culture derived from hepatopancreas of tiger prawn Penaeus monodon

Abstract

Hepatopancreatocytes from hepatopancreas of penaeid shrimp, monodon were
cultured in artificial medium Leibovitz-15, supplemented with glucose and
sodium chloride in vitro. Two different approaches for culturing of these cells were
followed, i) Culturing, enzymatically disrupted cells and ii) Explant culture of
small tissue fragments. The second approach of explant cultures was observed to
be highly adva- ntageous as a monolayer was observed within 4-6 days of culture.
On the whole, cells could be maintained for as long as 45 days with a maximum
of 5 passages. On subculturing, generally one subpopulation of cells with high
proliferative capacity was observed to be predominant. Morphological studies
lead to the conclusion that these cells were embryonic cells from the tubular
epithelium of hepatopancreas.