There are two overarching types of culture media – natural media and synthetic (or artificial) media. Natural media includes natural biological fluids such as plasma and serum and tissue extracts or (plasma) clots, which can be used for a wide variety of cell and tissue cultures. However, reproducibility is poor due to a lack of knowledge of their exact composition.

Alternatively, synthetic media are made up of partly- or fully-defined components and are formulated for different applications such as for immediate or prolonged survival, indefinite growth, or for specialized functions. Basal media are a type of synthetic media and often contain components such as amino acids, salts, vitamins, hormones, growth factors and carbohydrates and can be used to create more specialized media, for instance, by addition of serum.

You will need to have access to the right type of culture media for your specific cell type and application. Media are complex mixtures of salts and include other components such as carbohydrates, vitamins, amino acids, growth factors, hormones, and trace elements. In addition, phenol red is frequently used as a pH indicator, so you can see when your medium may no longer be at the appropriate pH.

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There are four categories of synthetic media, it’s important to note that one media can belong to more than one category.

Serum-containing media are supplemented with serum, often from fetal calves, which contains growth factors and hormones that stimulate cell growth and function and help with cell attachment. The composition of serum varies, so testing is required to maintain the quality of each batch. This is particularly important as serums could also contain growth-inhibiting factors, which can increase the risk of contamination and can pose issues when you want to purify and isolate cell-culture products, such as protein. As a mark of our rigorous quality assurance testing, our classic media range is recommended by the Tissue Culture Association.
Serum-free media are better defined in terms of their components, so are more consistent and reproducible from batch to batch, helping give scientists comparable data. However, serum-free media may still contain undefined products of animal origin such as hormones or attachment factors. If required, you could consider protein-free and/or chemically defined media. Because serum is not present, there is a lower risk of contamination of your cell cultures. In the absence of serum, cell growth might be slower, which could result in producing fewer generations when using finite cell lines.
Protein-free media contain no protein and deliver good cell growth and high protein yield, meaning they could be a good choice if you are using cell cultures for the production of proteins.
Chemically-defined media are only composed of known ingredients and free of animal-derivatives meaning there is no variation between batches and can be an excellent choice for protein production.
Xeno-free media contain human serum-derived components but are free from animal derivatives. It is often used by researchers working to translate a therapy from research to clinic.

We offer various types of liquid media that have been developed and optimized through years of experience and innovation. If you’d like a complete overview of our cell culture media, visit our Culture Media Database.