Culture of parathyroid cells.

The parathyroid cells are highly differentiated with more or less their only function to secrete parathyroid hormone in response to the extracellular calcium level. Tumours from the parathyroid glands are >99% benign, and have a slow proliferation rate. Culture of parathyroid cells is known to be very difficult most likely due to the high differentiation level. This chapter reveals some details in order how to get parathyroid cells to survive in culture after dispersion of normal bovine parathyroid glands or pathological human parathyroid tumours. Detailed protocols describing cell dispersion with collagenase, short-term cultures, and establishment of long-term cultures are presented.