Southern flounder muscle cell line

Project aims

This project aims to establish and characterize a continuous myoblast cell line from southern flounder. To accomplish this, the research team will isolate 10 cell lines from white muscle tissue, compare their growth rates and myogenic potential, and maintain the most promising cell line until a continuous culture is established. They will also measure expression of key markers during differentiation into multinucleated myotubes. The team will compare approaches for myogenic differentiation, monitor the stability of the resulting phenotype and genotype over multiple generations, and assess the cells’ ability to transdifferentiate into adipocytes.

The research team also plans to adapt their most promising cell line to suspension culture and serum-free media formulation. This will be accomplished by using a unique serial replating approach they have developed for suspension adaptation of muscle cells. For serum removal, they will use a high-throughput screen of food-safe growth factors, small molecules, and plant-derived ingredients. To enhance accessibility, the researchers will deposit their developed cell lines at the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) and add them to GFI’s global cell line database at the end of the project.