What is serum-free cell culture medium and serum cell culture medium?

What is serum-free cell culture medium and serum cell culture medium?

It's hard to say in one sentence. But it can be compared separately from several aspects.

1. Product performance <br> Serum-free medium is better.
Serum is not born to raise cells. Serum is part of whole blood and is complex in composition with more than 150 known component components and multiple unknown components. Some of these components are beneficial for cell growth, some have no effect on cell growth, and some are detrimental to cell growth.
In addition, different cows have different differences in serum components due to their different constitutions. For example, EGF in serum, some content is 10ug / ml, and some are only 2ug / ml, a difference of 5 times. Sometimes the serum you use is not good, not your luck, and many times the manufacturer does not lie to you. Just because the cow was born not to give blood to raise cells. This is a thing that can't be done.
Most of the serum-free medium is designed for a certain type of cells. For example, CHO cells, 293 cells, insect cells, hybridoma cells, T lymphocytes, mesenchymal stem cells (MSC), and the like. The product design is a separate design based on the understanding of the cell, adding only the components with positive effects, and not adding substances with unknown or harmful effects (there is no reason for the increase in cost). Therefore, the performance of serum-free medium is better than the serum medium in terms of roots, and will be further enhanced as people become more aware of the cells.

2. Product Safety Aspects <br> This is very obvious.
Serum-free medium, the various substances in its formulation are clear. There are no unknown components.
If all non-animal derived components are selected, then there will be no virus and any unknown protein components from the roots. Security is clear.

3. Product price <br> Generally speaking, the price is the biggest disadvantage of serum-free medium. But for the time being, it really cannot be generalized.
In fact, serum-free media that have been used in large-scale industrial applications have been priced comparable to serum media, and some even below serum media. For example, T lymphocyte medium (immune cell serum-free medium), the price has reached a level of 400 yuan / L. It has been lower than the serum medium. This is of course a good thing, and now there is no human serum in the market for the cultivation of T lymphocytes.
The reason for the price drop is also relatively simple. That is, large-scale production has brought about a significant drop in raw material costs. The most costly part of the serum-free medium is the various recombinant proteins. As the scale of bioreactors has increased from tens of liters to thousands of liters, the cost of recombinant proteins as products has also fallen dramatically. In fact, the cost of serum-free media has a much lower space than serum media. Of course, this is also a very important reason why many protein drug manufacturers and virus vaccine companies use serum-free media.
Of course, for serum-free media for certain scientific uses, the price is indeed very expensive. 500ml / bottle of medium, the price is between 2000-8000. The core reason is also that the added recombinant protein species are rare, the yield is extremely low, and it is difficult to commercialize large-scale production, resulting in high production costs. Many research customers complain that manufacturers do not develop special serum-free media for them. In fact, manufacturers are also very helpless.

4. Use randomness <br> Generally speaking, the serum medium is stronger.
The use of randomness generally refers to the density of inoculation, the way of cell digestion, the selection of cell culture flasks, and the reactor rotation speed in large-scale culture.
Because serum-free media is specifically designed for large-scale cell culture. Large-scale customers are very sensitive to price. Therefore, serum-free media has been balanced between cost and ease of use at the beginning of design. Serum-free media is more suitable for use under defined conditions. The serum medium has less tolerance for operational errors due to the presence of various proteins in the serum, so the operator's requirements are relatively less.

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