Sometimes using a search is helpful before writing own questions:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_to_culture_MCF7_cells
According to this thread, it is possible to growth them without insulin, and DMEM as well as EMEM are possible. Personally, I was using phenolred free DMEM/F12 medium, but with insulin.
Hi yes I've grown these cells quite a lot but followed ATCC's directions for the cells:The base medium for this cell line is ATCC-formulated Eagle's Minimum Essential Medium, Catalog No. 30-2003. To make the complete growth medium, add the following components to the base medium: 0.01 mg/ml human recombinant insulin; fetal bovine serum to a final concentration of 10%.
Generally (if you look through the literature) most cells can be grown in a variety of media's.
I used Insulin and I would recommend you do the same as it is very cheap, stable for up to 4years at 4oC and you do not use much in the media (0.01 mg/ml)).
Sigma sells 5 ml of 10 mg/ml (i.e. a 1000x stock) for £37 (~50 Euro at time of writing).
https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/sigma/i9278?lang=en®ion=GB
Not using Insulin will mean that any result you generate may not be considered compatible with other results published in the scientific literature (for example, apart from growth rate do you know what the Insulin is doing in the media? It may be affecting various signalling pathways....).
I've found the cells are a little slow growing to begin with but do pick up with a doubling time of ~ 45 hours (in good quality FBS) with a yield of ~ 6.5x10e6/T175 (at ~ 70% confluence).
Hope this helps,
Gary
We grow the cells in DMEM supplemented with 10% FBS, 6.74 Uml-1 Penicillin-Streptomycin, 200Mm L-glutamine, we do not add any insulin or any other additives and the cells seem to grow fine and annoyingly fast! However, if you want to look for specific pathways or proliferation rates and compare them to previous literature you may need to check what other people have used so your data will be comparable to theirs.
Thank you all for your kind suggestions. We are proceeding with ATCC guidelines but without insulin and they seem fine.
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