Marine invertebrate cell culture: a decade of development

Since the 1970s, much work has been devoted to the development of marine invertebrate cell culture. Despite this effort there are still no established cell lines. During the last decade, more than 40 papers on primary cell culture have been published. The phyla primarily studied are porifera, cnidaria, crustacea, mollusca, echinodermata, urochordata, and cephalochordata. A variety of methods have been investigated to improve culture conditions and prolong the lifespan of cells, including use of different pretreatments, culture media, temperature, pH, and additives; genetic modification has also been investigated. In this paper we review the vast majority of work published on marine invertebrate cell culture in the last decade (2002-2012) and emphasize new trends in biotechnological applications of cell culture.