Mammalian cell culture media basics

If you want cells to grow happily in a dish, you need to feed them the food that they wish! Mammalian cell culture media (the liquid food you feed them) can be complicated because different cells want different things (different growth factor & nutrient requirements, etc.) and they’re not used to growing in dishes! Media often consists of some sort of base media containing salts, amino acids, pH buffers, sugar, etc. And then you supplement that with things that 1) are specialized for that cell type or experiment and/or 2) are unstable so you have to add right before use. One thing you often have to add is some sort of serum (cell-less blood), typically Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS). This has the growth factors, trace minerals, and carrier proteins needed to help get things into cells, keep toxins out of cells, etc. Problem is that these sera can have batch-to-batch variability and also contain stuff that can interfere with downstream experiments (also regulatory problems with if you want to stick stuff made from these cells into people and stuff). So there’s a growing push to make defined media that doesn’t rely on sera and instead contains a mix of all the different important components from the sera. Problem is there are lots! And it can be hard to tease apart what is or isn’t needed when. But you bet culture companies are hard at work perfecting it! And in the future, such defined media will likely be much more common (and hopefully much cheaper!)

blog form: https://bit.ly/cell_culture_media

Here’s a great resource if anyone’s interested in learning more about various types of cell culture media: Cell Culture Media: A Review. Meenakshi Arora (arormx at UPMC dot EDU). University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, United States; //dx.doi.org/10.13070/mm.en.3.175; last modified : 2022-01-29; original version : 2013-03-05; MATER METHODS 2013;3:175; https://www.labome.com/method/Cell-Cu...

P.S. That pink color isn’t from the serum or anything, and it isn’t “natural” - it’s phenol red which serves as a pH indicator. You don’t want the media to turn orange-yellow (too acidic, cells might be overgrown) or dark magenta (too basic/alkaline - might have been out of CO2-controlled incubator too long).

more about HEK293 cells: blog form: https://bit.ly/hekcells ; YouTube:    • HEK 293 cells: types and uses  

more about the sodium bicarbonate buffer system: http://bit.ly/bloodgasesandbuffering

    
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