Replacing fetal calf serum
Mumbai, India -
It is commonly known that growing almost any mammalian cell in culture requires the addition of fetal calf serum to the culture media. Unfortunately, fetal calf serum contains numerous xenogeneic proteins, which elicit various inflammatory responses when administered clinically. Accordingly, there is a big push in the industry to generate alternatives to fetal calf serum for tissue culture of cells that will be used for cell therapy.
In a recent paper (Shetty et al. Human umbilical cord blood serum can replace fetal bovine serum in the culture of mesenchymal stem cells. Cell Biol Int. 2006 Nov 19;) it was demonstrated that serum from human umbilical cord blood is an effective replacement for fetal calf serum when bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells are cultured.
Interestingly, growth was actually higher in cultures supplemented with cord blood serum. The question remains, however, whether this new culture technique is actually capable of expanding cells that have in vivo activity.
This paper seems to be confirmation of a patent originating from the same country.
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3 Comments | Add Comment
Paul said...
Unless the recipient is a cow !!!
But seriously, I know practitioners of stem cell therapy offshore that have used stem cells grown in fetal calf serum...
...they get a strange systemic inflammatory reaction (transient)
Philippe said...
Cord blood could be a good FCS replacement. However the available volume per cord blood is low (between 50 to 150 ml). It requires quality controls including mother viral safety. Thus the price will be high. It must be compared to human plasma enriched in platelet growth factors that availability is far more evident and could be autologous!.
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Denis said...
yes!
if using FCS, don't say that "autologus"!