Cell biology

This section covers:

International standards and resources

There is no international standard for cell biology terms, but Molecular cell biology (8th edition; H Lodish et al, WH Freeman, New York, 2016) has a good glossary.

Cell lines have varied names and abbreviations, and there are no standards for how they are written. ATCC provides a good list.

The Society for In Vitro Biology provides advice on terminology in the paper Terminology associated with cell, tissue and organ culture; molecular biology; and molecular genetics.

Australian conventions and resources

CellBank Australia provides a list of Australian cell lines. 

The lack of standards for cell line names means that many inconsistencies occur in cell line lists (eg fibroblast, Fibroblast). We recommend setting an internal style for publications and maintaining consistency. 

Terms to watch out for:

cell cycle, cell division

cell strain, cell line

in vitro, in vivo [use roman type (not italic) and no hyphen for these terms]

See all terms

Cell types

Use lower case for the names of cell types, except for proper nouns:

epithelial cell     keratinocycte     squamous cell     lymphocyte     natural killer cell     Hensen cell     Purkinje cell

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Cell culture medium

Use lower case for names of culture media (apart from any proper nouns). Do not include the possessive s for a medium named after a person:

minimum essential medium (MEM)     Fisher medium   not   Fisher’s medium

Reminder. Just because the abbreviation of a term is made up of capitals, it does not mean that the term has initial capitals when it is spelt out.

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Cell structure

Names of cell organelles and structures do not have an initial capital letter unless the name includes a proper noun:

nucleus     ribosome     mitochondrion     endoplasmic reticulum     Golgi complex     flagellum     chloroplast

Did you know? The Golgi complex is named after Camillo Golgi (1843–1926), an Italian physician, biologist, pathologist, scientist and Nobel laureate.

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Cell division and cell cycle

The cell cycle is made up of an interphase, when the cell is either undergoing normal functions or preparing to divide, and the actual process of division, which is called either mitosis (body cells) or meiosis (reproductive cells).

Cell division stages are presented in lower case:

metaphase     telophase

Interphase stages are denoted by G1 (resting/normal function), S (synthesis of DNA ready for cell division) and G2 (growth and preparation for division), and are written with a hyphen:

S-phase     G1-phase

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Stem cells

Use lower case for types of stem cells:

human embryonic stems cells     induced pluripotent stem cells     adult stem cells

Abbreviations of stem cell names can take a plural s where required, but check your organisation’s preferred style and maintain consistency:

HESCs     iPSCs     ASCs

Reminder. Just because the abbreviation of a term is made up of capitals, it does not mean that the term has initial capitals when it is spelt out.

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