In Vitro - Advantages of in Vitro Studies

Advantages of in Vitro Studies

Living organisms are extremely complex functional systems that are made up of, at a minimum, many tens of thousands of genes, protein molecules, RNA molecules, small organic compounds, inorganic ions and complexes in an environment that is spatially organized by membranes and, in the case of multicellular organisms, organ systems. For a biological organism to survive, these myriad components must interact with each other and with their environment in a way that processes food, removes waste, moves components to the correct location, and is responsive to signalling molecules, other organisms, light, sound, temperature and many other factors.

This extraordinary complexity of living organisms is a great barrier to the identification of individual components and the exploration of their basic biological functions. The primary advantage of in vitro work is that it permits an enormous level of simplification of the system under study, so that the investigator can focus on a small number of components. For example, the identity of proteins of the immune system (e.g. antibodies), and the mechanism by which they recognize and bind to foreign antigens would remain very obscure if not for the extensive use of in vitro work to isolate the proteins, identify the cells and genes that produce them, study the physical properties of their interaction with antigens, and identify how those interactions lead to cellular signals that activate other components of the immune system.

Cellular responses are species-specific, lending cross-species analysis problematic. Newer methods of same-species-targeted, multi-organ studies are available to bypass live, cross-species testing.