Culture Media & Sera

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, which differ in their requirement for supplementation with serum.

FBS contains a sparse amount of gamma globulin, higher levels of growth factors, and fewer complement proteins than both calf and adult bovine serum.  This makes FBS ideal for propagating cell growth while also decreasing the possibility of mammalian cells binding or lysing in the culture, rationalizing the preference of FBS over other animal sera. However, using serum in media has some disadvantages, including high cost, problems with standardization, specificity, and variability, and unwanted effects such as stimulation or inhibition of growth and/or cellular function on certain cell cultures. If the serum is not obtained from reputable source, contamination can also pose a serious threat to successful cell culture experiments.

Our Gibco products, including sera, are tested for contamination and guaranteed for their quality, safety, consistency, and regulatory compliance. We offer a wide variety of serum for your specific cell culture needs—from basic research to specialty assays. Whether you need serum with the least viral risk, the lowest endotoxin levels, or sera qualified for specialty applications and assays, Gibco products offer superior value.

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