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Classes of Culture Media
The culture medium is the most important component of the culture environment because it provides the necessary nutrients, growth factors, and hormones for cell growth, as well as regulating the pH and the osmotic pressure of the culture.
Although initial cell culture experiments were performed using natural media obtained from tissue extracts and body fluids, the need for standardization, media quality, and increased demand led to the development of defined media. The three basic classes of media are basal media, reduced-serum media, and serum-free media.
Comparison of culture media
Many continuous mammalian cell lines can be maintained on a relatively simple medium such as MEM supplemented with serum, and a culture grown in MEM can probably be just as easily grown in DMEM or Medium 199. However, when a specialized function is expressed, a more complex medium may be required. Information for selecting the appropriate medium for a given cell type is usually available in published literature and may also be obtained from the source of the cells or cell banks. We also offer the interactive Cell Culture Select tool, which features product recommendations and resources for your cell line of interest. With over 100 cell lines to choose from, the Cell Culture Select tool provides complete media recommendations for a variety of cell types and applications. Specialized cell lines may require additional research in published literature and may also be obtained from the source of the cells or cell banks. If there is no information available on the appropriate medium for your cell type, choose the growth medium and serum empirically or test several different media for best results. In general, a good place to start is MEM for adherent cells and RPMI-1640 for suspension cells.
Insect cells are cultured in growth media that are usually more acidic than those used for mammalian cells, such as TNM-FH and Grace’s medium.
Basal media
The majority of cell lines grow well in basal media, which contain amino acids, vitamins, inorganic salts, and a carbon source such as glucose, but these basal media formulations must be further supplemented with serum.
Reduced-serum media
Another strategy to reduce the undesired effects of serum in cell culture experiments is to use reduced-serum media. Reduced-serum media are basal media formulations enriched with nutrients and animal-derived factors, which reduce the amount of serum supplementation that is needed.
Serum-free media
Serum-free media (SFM) circumvents issues with using animal sera by replacing the serum with appropriate nutritional and hormonal formulations. Serum-free media formulations exist for many primary cultures and cell lines, including recombinant protein producing lines of Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO), various hybridoma cell lines, the insect lines Sf9 and Sf21 (Spodoptera frugiperda), and for cell lines that act as hosts for viral production (e.g., 293, VERO, MDCK, MDBK), and others. One of the major advantages of using serum-free media is the ability to make the medium selective for specific cell types by choosing the appropriate combination of growth factors.
The table below lists the advantages and disadvantages of serum-free media.
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See all Serum-Free Media products
Culture media comparison table
This table provides a comparison of several commonly used culture media, their full names, common components, typical applications, and key features.
| Culture medium | Full name | Common components | Applications | Features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DMEM | Dulbecco's Modified Eagle Medium | High glucose or low glucose, amino acids, vitamins, salts | Widely used for many mammalian cell types, especially fibroblasts, neurons, glial cells, HUVECs, cancer research, primary cells |
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| DMEM/F12 | Dulbecco's Modified Eagle Medium: Nutrient Mixture F-12 | Combination of DMEM and Ham's F-12, amino acids, vitamins | Mammalian cells, Serum-free growth of CHO cells, hybridomas, primary cells |
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| IMDM | Iscove's Modified Dulbecco's Medium | Highly enriched medium for fastidious cells such as hematopoietic cells, hybridomas , t-lymphocytes | Highly enriched medium for fastidious cells such as hematopoietic cells, hybridomas, t-lymphocytes |
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| MEM | Minimum Essential Medium | Amino acids, vitamins, salts, glucose | General cell culture, adherent cell lines, primary cells, cytotoxicity assays |
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| RPMI 1640 | Roswell Park Memorial Institute 1640 Medium | Glucose, amino acids, vitamins, salts, bicarbonate | General cell culture, lymphocyte culture, hybridoma cells, immunological studies |
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| Ham’s F-12 | Ham’s F-12 Nutrient Mix | Glucose, amino acids, vitamins, salts, putrescine, hypoxanthine, thymidine | CHO cells, genetic research, recombinant protein production |
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| McCoy’s 5A | McCoy’s 5A Medium | High glucose, amino acids, vitamins, salts, bacto-peptone, glutathione | Fibroblasts, primary cells |
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| Leibovitz’s L-15 | Leibovitz’s L-15 Medium | Galactose, amino acids, vitamins, salts | HEP-2 monkey kidney cells, primary explants of embryonic and adult tissue |
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| F-10 | Ham’s F-10 Nutrient Mix | Glucose, amino acids, vitamins, salts, hypoxanthine, thymidine | CHO cells, primary explants, serum-free applications |
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| Williams’ E Medium | Williams’ E Medium | Glucose, amino acids, vitamins, salts, glutathione, lipid methyl linoleate | Hepatocytes, liver cells, primary cells |
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| NCTC 109 | Medium NCTC-109 | Glucose, amino acids, vitamins, salts, glutathione, ascorbic acid, coenzymes | Mouse fibroblasts, hybridomas, primary cells |
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| Fischer’s Medium | Fischer’s Medium | Glucose, amino acids, vitamins, salts | Lymphocytes, lymphoblasts, hematopoietic cells |
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| BME | Basal Medium Eagle | Glucose, amino acids, vitamins, salts | Fibroblasts, primary cells |
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| GMEM | Glasgow’s Minimal Essential Medium | High glucose, high amino acids, high vitamins, salts | Kidney cell lines, genetic studies |
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| Grace’s Insect Medium | Grace’s Insect Medium | Glucose, fructose, sucrose, malic acid, fumaric acid, succinic acid, alpha-ketoglutaric acid, amino acids, vitamins, salts | Insect cells, virus production, recombinant protein production |
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| Schneider’s Drosophila Medium | Schneider’s Drosophila Medium | Amino acids, inorganic salts, other components | Drosophila cells, insect cell culture, genetic studies |
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Cell culture media best practices
Here are a few simple tips & tricks to help ensure your cell culture media are maintained for optimal performance.
If refrigerated, warm your cell culture media before use. Your cells would be cold at 2–8°C, and you would be too!
Keep your cell culture media protected from light. Light exposure degrades the essential vitamins in media that your cells need to grow.
Once you have supplemented the cell culture media with FBS, place the complete media into the refrigerator (2–8°C ) to maintain performance.
Use your supplemented media within 2–4 weeks to reduce the chances of contamination and the impact of pH drift.
Resources
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