RAW 264.7 Macrophages

[Katy_Bobbles]

I've been doing my honours project and would like to know if RAW stands for anything. I know they are murine macrophages but I wondered if the RAW part is relevant??

[blcr11]

I kind of doubt the RAW tells you anything much about the cell line, though I can’t be certain. The original line was described in a 1978 Cell paper. The first author was W.C. Raschke and one of the other authors was P. Ralph. Derivation of the line involved infecting mice with Abelson murine leukemia virus (which often makes a defective sarcoma virus as well) and collection of the initial tumors sometimes involved harvesting ascites fluids. It could be as simple as Ralph and William’s cell line 264.7-or almost anything else. I can’t think of any reasonable biological reason to call the cell line “RAW”. Raschke is still around. He’s a faculty member at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center in San Diego. You could write him and ask if you want to go to the horse’s mouth.

[Katy_Bobbles]

Thanks again bcr11. I just wondered in case it was relevant and I had to write about it. I'm not that desperate to know so I'll just leave it at that. If I have to find out at least I'll know who to write to.