Objective: To biologically develop and evaluate the caprine fetal fibroblast cell cultures
before and after freezing.
Methods: Goat fetuses (ages 51, 53 and 55 d) were collected from slaughterhouse. Their
skin was cut into small pieces (1 mm3) and cultured in DMEM and FBS. When reaching
80%–90% confluence, cells were passaged. Cells of the 8th passage were cultured in 24-
well plates (1.5 × 105 cells/well) for 9 d and three wells were counted every day. The
average cell counts at each time point were plotted against day number and the population
doubling time (PDT) was determined. Then, 42 vials of cells (2 × 106 cells/mL) were
frozen. Samples were thawed and cultured after 1 month. Cell viability and PDT were
evaluated after thawing.
Results: After eight passages, the goat fetal fibroblast cells had a latent phase of about
48 h and after an exponential phase, cells entered the plateau phase on day 5. Before
freezing, PDT was about 22 h and after thawing it was about 28 h.
Conclusions: The goat fetal fibroblast cell culture can be established using the adherent
culture method and can be cryopreserved, too. After thawing, growth and viability indices
of these cells were acceptable.