Hi, I am new to this area and am intending to culture both primary cells line: human keratinocytes and human dermal fibroblasts using the same media for co-culture. Was thinking if anyone can advice on any suitable media for culturing both cells?
Hi Arielle,
If your cells are genuinely 'primary', they are NOT cell lines!
The choice of media to maintain them in vitro depends on the application; what is your objective?
In general fibroblasts will growth in anything; the keratinocytes are less robust.
If you are using an ECM matrix remember to include cations (i.e. don't use RPMI). Most media include high glucose, which like diabetes, encourages aberrant PTMs e.g. hyperglycosylation (AGEs) and dysregulates Redox. Depending on your cell donor(s), you may need to use batch-tested your FBS/FCS; every batch is different, depending on the cow donors. I recommend starting with the original recipe from Howard Green. Of course there are also many serum-free alternatives (recommended); look at the formulations from CELLnTEC.
Have fun playing!
Fibroblasts are generally pretty nice cells to work with so you could try either both in DMEM or in whatever media is suggested to grow keratinocytes
We used DMEM:F12 and Epilife, fibroblast- and keratinocyte-specific medium respectively, at the ratio 50:50 to coculture primary fibroblasts and keratinocytes.
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