Humanized Medium (h7H) Allows Long-Term Primary Follicular Thyroid Cultures From Human Normal Thyroid, Benign Neoplasm, and Cancer

Context: Mechanisms of thyroid physiology and cancer are principally studied in follicular cell lines. However, human thyroid cancer lines were found to be heavily contaminated by other sources, and only one supposedly normal-thyroid cell line, immortalized with SV40 antigen, is available. In primary culture, human follicular cultures lose their phenotype after passage. We hypothesized that the loss of the thyroid phenotype could be related to culture conditions in which human cells are grown in medium optimized for rodent culture, including hormones with marked differences in its affinity for the relevant rodent/human receptor. Objective: The objective of the study was to define conditions that allow the proliferation of primary human follicular thyrocytes for many passages without losing phenotype. Methods: Concentrations of hormones, transferrin, iodine, oligoelements, antioxidants, metabolites, and ethanol were adjusted within normal homeostatic human serum ranges. Single cultures were identified by s...