I'm working on Diabetic Nephropathy and a very recent paper (attached) helped me to design my experiment. According to the paper,  The cells were cultured in DMEM (Dulbecco’s modi-fied Eagle’s medium) supplemented with 10% fetal calf serum, 100 U/mL penicillin, and 100 μg/mL streptomycin at 37 °C in an atmosphere containing 5% CO2.  I used to grow the cells in DMEM+10% FBS+5.5mmol/L glucose.

Is it ok?

May I know from the field of researchers in this DMEM medium, where you maintain the cells, how much Glucose concentration you have used? According to the protocol, After preincubation in DMEM supplemented with 0.5% fetal calf serum for 24 h, cells were then treated in different groups: normal glucose group (NG, 5.6 mM glucose) and high glucose group (HG, 30 mM glucose), respectively. Similarly, I followed it, but post-starvation, cell shrinkage is there.

Is it normal?

or should I diminish the starvation hour?

Otherwise, I couldn't understand the morphological changes, cell death is whether for High Glucose or Starvation period?

I don't understand why it is so.  Actually, post-starvation changes in cellular morphology bothered me. Really waiting for your help.