Search
Reduce serum. Maintain performance. Optimize workflows.
Gibco Advanced Media and Opti-MEM Reduced-Serum Media are designed for applications requiring supplementation with a lower concentration of serum. These media help lower fetal bovine serum (FBS) dependency while maintaining reliable cell growth, morphology, and performance across routine and advanced cell culture applications. Optimized to support cell culture consistency, these formulations help reduce serum-related variability and costs without compromising results.
From cell line maintenance and expansion, to transfection workflows and organoid culture, choose from these Gibco media to reduce serum dependency while maintaining performance.
Advanced Media: A flexible approach to cell culture with reduced serum
Gibco Advanced Media were designed to support a broad range of mammalian cell lines while enabling significant serum reduction, typically between 50% and 90%, without compromising growth or morphology.
Enriched with constituents that FBS typically provides, Gibco Advanced Media can be used in combination with your fetal bovine serum (FBS), helping reduce dependence on serum while maintaining performance. These formulations include key components such as insulin, transferrin, lipids, antioxidants, and trace elements that support cell health in reduced-serum conditions. Due to the enhanced formulation, these media have also been used as a foundation for serum-free advanced applications, such as organoid culture.
Advanced Media are best suited for:
- Routine cell culture and expansion
- Cell line maintenance
- Scaling workflows while reducing serum use
- Advanced cell culture applications, such as organoid models
Key benefits of Advanced Media:
- Reduced lot-to-lot serum variability
- Lower costs through reduced serum use and fewer lot tests
- Equivalent growth and morphology for common cell lines
- Common formulations available (e.g., Advanced DMEM, DMEM/F-12, MEM, and RPMI 1640)
| Cell type/cell line(s) | Medium |
Publication reference |
|---|---|---|
Breast adenocarcinoma: MDA-MB-231 |
Advanced DMEM |
|
Non-small cell lung cancer: A549, H1299, H460, H1703, H322 |
Advanced DMEM |
|
Endometrial carcinoma: HEC-1-A, MFE-296, HEC-251 |
Advanced DMEM |
|
T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia: Jurkat E6-1, MOLT-3, CCRF-CEM |
Advanced RPMI 1640 |
|
T cell leukemia: Jurkat E6.1 |
Advanced RPMI 1640 |
|
T cell leukemia: Jurkat and Jurkat-Tat Human embryonic kidney: 293T |
Advanced RPMI 1640 Advanced DMEM |
Cell type |
Medium |
Publication reference |
|---|---|---|
Primary bovine myoblasts |
Advanced DMEM |
|
Primary human glioblastoma |
Advanced DMEM |
|
Primary human chondrocytes |
Advanced DMEM |
- Advanced RPMI is used in the Dynabeads workflow for T cell activation: Mouse T-Activator CD3/CD28
- Advanced DMEM/F-12 is used for expansion of neural stem cells generated from pluripotent stem cells: Neural differentiation of PSC spheroids grown in StemScale medium
- Advanced DMEM is used for Kupffer cell culture: Cryopreserved Human & Rate Kupffer Cells Product Information Sheet
Advanced Media for organoid culture
Gibco Advanced Media are foundational basal media for both adult stem cell- and iPSC-derived complete organoid media formulations. When used in conjunction with GlutaMAX supplement, HEPES, and B-27 supplement, our media have been shown to support a wide variety of organoid models, including lung, liver, kidney, and intestine.
Cell type |
Medium |
Publication reference |
|---|---|---|
Intestine, PSCs |
Advanced DMEM |
|
Kidney, PSCs |
Advanced RPMI 1640 |
|
Lung, PSCs |
Advanced DMEM/F-12 |
|
Intestine, ASCs |
Advanced DMEM/F-12 |
|
Liver, ASCs |
Advanced DMEM/F-12 |
|
Esophageal tumoroids |
Advanced DMEM/F-12 |
Advanced Media can perform equivalently to standard media with less serum
- Growth dynamics
- Downstream applications
- Adaptation
- Cost comparison
Figure 1. (A) HEK-293, (B) CHO-K1, (C) NIH3T3 cells grown in Advanced Medium with reduced serum were morphologically indistinguishable from standard medium supplemented with 10% serum. Cells were grown in experimental conditions for ten passages prior to morphological analysis by phase-contrast microscopy.
Various cell lines grown in Advanced Media had viability and proliferation rates equivalent to standard culture conditions with 50–80% less FBS.
Figure 2. (A) HEK-293, (B) CHO-K1 cells grown in Advanced Medium with reduced serum showed equivalent growth kinetics as compared to standard medium supplemented with 10% serum. Cells were grown in experimental conditions for ten passages with cell counts and viability measured at every passage. No significant difference across experimental conditions for n=10 passages.
Cell lines grown in Advanced Media with 50–80% less FBS had equivalent transfection efficiency as cells grown in standard culture conditions.
Figure 3. (A) HEK-293, (B) CHO-K1 cells grown Advanced Media supplemented with reduced serum showed comparable transfection efficiency for plasmid DNA to standard medium supplemented with 10% serum. Cells were grown in experimental conditions for ten passages prior to lipid-based transfection with GFP.
Jurkat cells grown in Advanced RPMI Medium 1640 had equivalent expression of CD3 to standard culture conditions with 80% less FBS.
Figure 4. Jurkat cells cultured in Advanced RPMI-1640 medium with 2% FBS expressed CD3 at levels comparable to those grown in standard RPMI-1640 medium with 10% FBS. Cells were grown in experimental conditions for ten passages prior to analysis of CD3 expression by flow cytometry.
For most applications, no adaptation is necessary (see Direct adaptation) to attain at least a 50% reduction in serum supplementation levels. If suboptimal cell growth characteristics (e.g., growth rate, morphology, or secondary metabolite production levels) are observed or additional serum reduction is desired, use the sequential adaptation procedure. Successful adaptation will depend upon the particular cell line and the culture conditions employed. We recommend maintaining backup cultures in the original medium until achieving success with the new medium. Note: For best results cell viability should be ≥90% and growth rate be in mid-logarithmic phase prior to adaptation.
Direct adaptation
- Subculture cells grown in conventional medium with 5–10% FBS into the appropriate (see Table 1) prewarmed complete Advanced Media. Recommended seeding densities are indicated in Table 1.
- Monitor cell growth and subculture following your normal protocol using the appropriate (see Table 1) prewarmed complete Advanced Media.
- Cell cultures are considered to be adapted after 3–5 passages of consistent growth.
Note: If suboptimal performance is observed using the direct adaptation method over 3–5 passages, use the sequential adaptation method.
Sequential adaptation
- Subculture cells grown in conventional medium with 5–10% FBS into a 25:75 ratio of the appropriate (see Table 1) prewarmed complete Advanced Media to the original media. Recommended seeding densities are indicated in Table 1.
- Monitor cell growth and subculture following your normal protocol into stepwise increasing ratios of new media to the original media (50:50, followed by 75:25, then 90:10). Multiple passages at each step may be needed.
- Subculture cells into 100% prewarmed complete Advanced Media and continue to monitor and passage cells until consistent growth is achieved. After several passages of consistent growth and viability in 100% complete Advanced Media the culture is considered to be adapted.
Cell line |
Seeding density (viable cells per 25 cm²) |
% FBS |
|---|---|---|
A549 |
2.5 × 10⁵ |
1–2 |
MDBK |
1 × 10⁵ |
1–2 |
COS-7 |
2 × 10⁵ |
1–2 |
VERO |
1 × 10⁵ |
1–2 |
MRC-5 |
5 × 10⁵ |
2 |
Cell line |
Seeding density (viable cells per 25 cm²) |
% FBS |
|---|---|---|
VERO |
1 × 10⁵ |
0.5–2 |
Jurkat |
5 × 10⁵ |
1–2 |
SP2 |
1.5 × 10⁵ |
0.5 |
MRC-5 |
5 × 10⁵ |
2 |
WI-38 |
5 × 10⁵ |
2 |
Cell line |
Seeding density (viable cells per 25 cm²) |
% FBS |
|---|---|---|
PK-15 |
2 × 10⁵ |
1–2 |
VERO |
1 × 10⁵ |
1–2 |
WI-38 |
4 × 10⁵ |
2 |
MDCK |
1 × 10⁵ |
2 |
Hep-2 |
3 × 10⁵ |
2 |
Cell line |
Seeding density (viable cells per 25 cm²) |
% FBS |
|---|---|---|
VERO |
1 × 10⁵ |
0.5–2 |
Jurkat |
5 × 10⁵ |
0.5–2 |
SP2 |
1.5 × 10⁵ |
0.5 |
RAJI |
3 × 10⁵ |
0.5 |
DAUDI |
2 × 10⁵ |
0.5 |
Table 1. Recommended Serum Levels and Seeding Density. For use in Advanced Media.
Combine one bottle of your FBS with a basal medium and compare its yield to FBS combined with Advanced Medium. For this illustrative comparison, preparing 50 complete basal medium bottles assumes 10% FBS supplementation and requires five bottles of FBS, while preparing 50 complete Advanced Medium bottles assumes 2% supplementation and requires one bottle of FBS. Because these calculations use different supplementation levels, they are not a like-for-like comparison; equivalent performance at 2% depends on the cell line and formulation.
Use the calculator below and enter the cost of your FBS, basal medium, and Advanced Medium to approximate the cost difference.
Cost of 50 bottles of complete medium using basal medium with 10% FBS
((5
x A) + (50 x B))
0
Cost of 50 bottles of complete medium using Advanced Medium with 2%
FBS
((A) + (50 x C))
0
Approximate cost difference
0%
Figure 5. Stretch your FBS. At 2% FBS supplementation one 500 mL bottle of FBS will complete 50 bottles of media versus 10 bottles at standard supplementation. (results may vary by cell line and formulation)
Medium formulation |
Classical Cat. No. |
Advanced Cat. No. |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
DMEM, high glucose, pyruvate, no glutamine |
10313021 |
500 mL |
500 mL |
|
10313039 |
10 x 500 mL |
10 x 500 mL |
||
DMEM/F-12, no glutamine, no HEPES |
21331020 |
500 mL |
500 mL |
|
10 x 500 mL |
||||
MEM, no glutamine |
11090081 |
500 mL |
500 mL |
|
11090099 |
10 x 500 mL |
10 x 500 mL |
||
RPMI 1640, no glutamine |
21870076 |
500 mL |
500 mL |
|
21870092 |
10 x 500 mL |
10 x 500 mL |
||
Shop Advanced Media
Opti-MEM Reduced-Serum Medium: Designed for transfection and sensitive applications
Gibco Opti-MEM Reduced-Serum Media are a modification of Eagle's Minimum Essential Medium, buffered with HEPES and sodium bicarbonate, and supplemented with hypoxanthine, thymidine, sodium pyruvate, L-glutamine, trace elements, and growth factors. Designed to support cell viability under reduced-serum conditions while maintaining expected growth and morphology.
Most cells grown in serum-supplemented media can be transferred to Opti-MEM media with a minimum of 50% reduction in serum. Opti-MEM Reduced-Serum Media support lipid-based transfection reagents, where reduced serum conditions can improve efficiency and consistency.
Opti-MEM Media are best suited for:
- Transfection workflows, including use with cationic lipid reagents such as Lipofectamine reagents
- Viral production
- Assays sensitive to serum or protein interference
Key benefits of Opti-MEM Media:
- Enables at least 50% serum reduction in serum
- Supports a wide range of adherent and suspension mammalian cell lines, including HEK, CHO, BHK, and primary fibroblasts
Shop Opti-MEM Reduced-Serum Medium
Resources and support
Resources
Gibco Media Selection Tool
Find the right Gibco media for your application. Use this interactive tool to select media based upon culture type, components, additives, and format.
Cell Culture Selection Tools
Find the right cell culture products for your research with these selection tools. Search for media, FBS, plastics, transfection reagents, and more.
Gibco Cell Culture Basics
Learn best practices and fundamentals of cell culture. Topics include aseptic technique and methods for the growth and maintenance of cells in culture.
Cell Culture Videos
Explore this collection of cell culture videos providing valuable insights into techniques, resources, and the latest advancements in the field.
Cell Culture & Transfection Learning Center
Access cell culture and transfection educational resources for better experiment planning and execution.
Support
Cell Culture & Transfection Support Center
Find technical support recommendations for your cell culture and transfection workflows, including tips for experimental setup and in-depth troubleshooting help.
Need technical support? Contact our team for technical and application support of Laboratory Products.
Related products
- Cell culture media
- Cell culture plastics
- Cell culture FBS
- Cell culture reagents
- Cell culture media supplements
- Cell transfection products
- Recombinant proteins
- Cell culture instruments & equipment
- Cell imaging and analysis
- Cell culture workflow solutions
For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.