What you might not know about cell culture media?

In recent years, animal cell culture technology has expanded to many aspects of biological research and commercial production, and has become a widely used technical means. In the history of cell culture development, the development of cell culture media occupies an important position. So what do you know about the development of cell culture media and how to choose a suitable cell culture media?

 

 

History of cell culture medium

1. Natural cell culture medium stage

       Early cell culture media used certain tissue clots, animal tissue extracts or body fluids, such as plasma clots, serum, lymph fluid, and embryo leachate.

        In 1885, Roux cultivated chicken embryo tissue with warm saline to keep it alive for several days. This is the earliest record of tissue culture.

        In 1907, American embryologist Harrison succeeded in cultivating frog embryo nerves with lymph fluid as a medium under a sterile environment, and created an in vitro culture method.

        Since then, scientists have successively carried out research on the nutritional components that maintain cell growth. Due to the limitations of the time, they have not developed steadily, but these have laid a certain foundation for the stage of synthetic cell culture medium.

2. Synthetic cell culture medium stage

       The synthetic cell culture medium has clear chemical composition and stable components, mainly including sugars, essential amino acids, vitamins, inorganic salts, etc. It is strictly formulated according to the nutrients required by known cells.

       The earliest was the 199 cell culture medium in 1950. So far, dozens of synthetic cell culture media have been developed. In addition to the basic synthetic cell culture medium that has been used for half a century, low serum cells with more nutrient components have appeared in recent years Culture medium.

       There are 6 to 7 basic cell culture media most commonly used in animal cell culture, such as BME, MEM, DMEM, HAM F12, PRMI1640, 199 and so on.

       Since some nutrients of natural medium cannot be completely replaced by synthetic cell culture medium, it is generally necessary to add 5% to 10% calf serum to synthetic cell culture medium. The addition of calf serum is very effective for cell culture, but the composition of calf serum is complex, which will bring some inconvenience to the purification and detection of culture products.

3. Serum-free cell culture medium stage

        Serum is essential for most cell lines that grow and proliferate in traditional media formulations. However, the use of serum also brings many problems. On the basis of a synthetic cell culture medium, a cell culture medium that does not add serum during use, and its composition does not contain any animal components, so that the culture medium can not only meet the nutrients required for cell culture, but also avoid the serum The problem.

        Serum-free cell culture medium is classified according to its components. It can also be divided into animal-free serum-free cell culture medium and chemically-defined serum-free cell culture medium. Composition with well-defined ingredients.

        At present, many companies have developed a series of serum-free cell culture media for specific cells, such as the stem cell culture medium of Ferion Biotechnology, which brings convenience for researchers to carry out related research better.

 

 

The role of cell culture medium

        Cell culture medium is the foundation of cell culture, which provides nutrients for the healthy and rapid growth of animal cells. So as long as cells are used to make biotech products, the important role of cell culture media is irreplaceable.

        The main components of the cell culture medium are water, amino acids, vitamins, carbohydrates, inorganic salts and other auxiliary nutrients. Traditional synthetic cell culture medium will add a certain amount of serum, low serum cell culture medium or serum-free cell culture medium is based on synthetic cell culture medium, by adjusting the ratio or content of nutrients, or adding some serum replacement factors .

        The cell culture medium contains sufficient nutrients to meet the substances and energy required to complete biochemical reactions such as new cell synthesis and cell metabolism. In addition, proper cell culture medium pH, buffering capacity, osmotic pressure, viscosity and surface tension are also the key to normal cell growth and development.

 

 

How to choose the right cell culture medium

       At present, there are a wide variety of culture media on the market, and there are various manufacturers. Before starting a cell experiment, some friends may be more troubled about the choice of cell culture medium. So at this point, what are we going to do? Let me share with you my method.

       For new cell lines purchased, the selling unit can be requested to provide appropriate media information.

       For some specific cells required for the experiment, you can consult the literature according to the characteristics of the cell line and the experimental needs, refer to the experience of others, and select the appropriate medium.

If there is no relevant literature support, you can choose a variety of media to cultivate the target cells together, observe their growth status, make some growth curves or colony formation and other indicators, and select the appropriate media according to these.

       For important experiments, in the selection of cell culture media, you can choose the media produced by some well-known companies, or the supporting media sold by the target cell sales unit. In general, this can avoid experiments caused by media quality problems. Errors laid the foundation for the smooth progress of the experiment.