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Why serum-free cell culturing?

To substitute, when culturing cells in any standard enriched basal media containing amino acids (eg. DMEM, RPMI, etc.), simply replace your serum with a serum substitute.

The second option would be to opt for a complete serum-free medium; there are generic serum-free media such as UltraCultureTM Serum-free Medium or dedicated serum-free media such as X-VIVO 15® Medium, a serum-free, xeno-free medium for hematopoietic cells.



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Serum-free media are available in different grades


A serum-free medium can be more than one grade; for example serum free medium Pro293a is a chemically defined serum-free medium suitable for adherent cells, this serum-free medium is protein-free (no proteins >10kDalton) and is of non animal origin.


If you are currently cultivating your cells with serum and see the benefit of standardizing your cell culture by moving away from serum culturing, you have to follow a procedure called weaning, to adapt your cells to the serum-free environment. The percentage (%) serum added to a cell culture in the range of 5-10% is not conform the in vivo situation, in the human body, the cells are overloaded with food, serum-free is like a healthy diet.

You may have cells, which grow immediately in the new serum-free medium others need the weaning procedure which might takes 4-6 weeks to adapt, depending on cell growth.

One more point of care, when cryopreserving your cells, which are cultured in serum-free medium, avoid using serum, once in serum the weaning procedure is required even when cryopreserving. There is serum-free cryopreservation medium named ProFreeze CD, a chemically defined serum-free freezing medium.