The use of serum-free media has been well established in tissue culture. It is commonly used to culture many cell lines, including primary cells, cancerous cells, and various transfected cells.
The advantages of using serum-free media include a reduction in batch-to-batch variation that comes with the use of serum supplementation, a lower protein content to reduce product purification steps, and a reduced risk of introducing contaminants. Many areas of research require serum-free media, whether it is for the production of therapeutics (recombinant proteins, vaccines, etc.) or the study of hormone-cell interactions.
The increase in research with protein production, including the search for human therapeutics and vaccines, has made media formulations with a very low protein content necessary. Low protein formulations have the advantage of reducing later purification steps to remove unwanted proteins. Many research protocols now require formulations with extremely low levels of protein that do not sacrifice growth or productivity. These formulations take advantage of recombinant sources for growth factors, thus eliminating the requirement for animal protein. Protein is on the order of micrograms or nanograms per millilitre and the media is often developed to support specific cell lines. These formulations are available in custom sizes for either bench-top or large scale production.
Low-protein specialty media is available for six popular cell lines (BHK, CHO, Hybridoma, MDCK, MRC-5, and Vero) from ICN Biomedicals. Each was developed with minimal amounts of recombinant human protein and shown to support superior growth and productivity in culture. The Hybridoma, BHK, and Vero media are chemically defined. Samples are available for evaluation. u
ENQUIRY No 26
ICN Biomedicals Inc is based in Irvine, California, USA. www.icnbiomed.com
