An overview of culture and isolation methods suitable for in vitro studies on pulmonary neuroendocrine cells.

Successful isolation and culture of pulmonary neuroendocrine cells (PNEC) is essential for the investigation of cellular and membrane properties of these cells. Such studies are important to define the functional role for PNEC but are hampered by their scant numbers and widespread distribution within the pulmonary epithelium. Several in vitro methods for the isolation and culture of these cells have been described over the past decade, including organ culture, isolation of single cell suspensions enriched for PNEC, and immunomagnetic cell separation techniques. This paper reviews the various methods and discusses their advantages and pitfalls.