For routine maintenance, the SBT-E1 cell line established from an
anterior body cross-section of a captive-bred southern bluefin tuna
fingerling was cultured as previously described (Bain et al., 2013;
Scholefield and Schuller, 2014). The cell line was originally a primary
culture and is now presumed to be immortalized. The experiments described
in this paper were conducted between passages 43 and 54. The
standard culture medium consisted of Leibovitz's L-15 medium supplemented
with 15 mM 4-(2-hydroxyethyl)-1-piperazineethanesulfonic
acid (HEPES) buffer (pH 7.4) and 10% (v/v) foetal bovine serum (FBS)
and the culture temperature was 25 °C. The species of origin of the SBTE1
cells was confirmed by sequencing a fragment of the mitochondrial
cytochrome c oxidase (cox1) gene amplified by polymerase chain
reaction as previously described (Bain et al., 2013).