Role of Serum

and its Supplements

 Introduction
 Animal Cell Culture can be described as in vitro
maintenance and propagation of animal cell using a
suitable nutrient media.
 Culturing is the process of growing animal cell artificially.
 The selection of the medium depends upon the type of cells
to be cultured and also the purpose of culture.
 Purpose of Animal Cell Culture can be growth,
differentiation, or even desired products like
pharmaceutical compounds.
• Animal Cells are cultured using a completely Natural
Media, or an Artificial Media (along with some natural
products).
 Natural Media
In the in vitro cultivation of animal cell culture technique
natural media are obtained from biological sources are used.
For e.g. :
1. Body Fluid such as plasma, serum, lymph, amniotic fluid
and much more are used. These fluids used as animal cell
culture media
2. Tissue extract such as extract of liver, spleen, bone marrow
and leucocytes are used. Commonly used is Chick embryo.
3. Plasma clots are also used and now they are commercially
produced as culture media.
4. Bovine Embryo extract are also prepared using bovine
embryos of up to 10 days age.
 Artificial Media
1. The artificial media contains partly or fully defined components.
2. The basic criteria for choosing a artificial media for ACC is that
the culture media should provide all the required nutrients to
the cell.
3. Media should maintain the physiological pH optimum for the
cell type with the help of buffering system.
4. The ACC media should be sterile and isotonic to the culturing
cells.
5. For promoting cell growth and proliferation, many types of ACC
media are designed by adding varying different constituents. For
e.g.. Serum containing media and serum free media.
 Serum Containing Media

1. Serum media is an example for natural media. Natural

media are very useful and convenient for a wide range
of ACC . But they also have got disadvantages.
2. Major reasons for using synthetic media are for
immediate survival of cells, for prolonged survival, for
indefinate growth and also for specialized functions.
3. The serum provides various plasma proteins, peptides,
lipids, carbohydrates, minerals and some enzymes.
 The components of the serum
serve the following functions :
1. Serum provides basic nutrient to the cell. The nutrients are
present in the solution .
2. Serum also contains hormones e.g., Insulin and growth
factors e.g., platelet- derived growth factors, epidermal
growth factors etc., which play a major role in stimulating
cell growth and function.
3. Serum helps in the attachment of the cell e.g., fibronectin,
which promote cell to substrate interaction.
4. Serum also acts as the spreading factors i.e., it helps the
cell to spread out before they begin to divide.
5. Serum also function as binding protein e.g., albumin,
transferein, which carry other molecules into the cell.
 Functions Continued…
6. Serum also minimizes mechanical damage and
also damage caused by viscosity e.g., shear forces
during agitation of suspension cultures.
7. Serum also acts as natural buffering agent and
helps in maintaining the pH of the culture media.
8. The serum also provides several minerals, e.g., K+,
Na+, Fe2+, Zn2+, etc.
9. Protease inhibitors present in the serum protect
cells from proteolysis.
 Disadvantages of Serum
containing Media
1. Serum may contain inadequate amount of cell
specific growth factors and may need to supplement
the media or may contain abundance of cytotoxic
compounds.
2. It has got high risk of contamination with virus ,
fungi and mycoplasma.
3. There is no uniformity in the composition of the
serum i.e., the exact composition is not known.
4. There is a large variation in serum batch to batch
culture
 Disadvantages
continued..
5. Serum may inhibit growth of some cell
types, e.g., epidermal keratinocytes
6. It interferes with the downstream
processing when cell cultures are used for
production of biochemical's.
7. The supply of serum is always lower than
its demand.
 Serum free media
 As using serum in animal cell culture
media has got some disadvantages, to
overcome this, serum free media are
designed and developed.
 Advantages of Serum Free
Media
1. The growth can be controlled of the cultured
cells as required by changing the composition
of the media .
2. Easier downstream processing of products
from cultured cells.
3. Toxic effect of serum are avoided.
4. There is no danger of degradation of sensitive
proteins by serum proteases.
 Disadvantages of serum
free media
1. Cell proliferation is very low
2. Cultured cells may need more than one type of
media to obtain desired cell culture products.
3. A greater control over the pH, Temperature,
etc. is necessary as compared to that with serum
containing media.
4. Growth rate and the maximum cell density
attained are lower than those with serum
containing media.