I noticed when doing literature review many scientist add charcoal-stripped FBS to EMEM media when treating MCF-7 cells to remove any residual hormones. However, I am needing to add estrogen to my media so I want to know if this is still something I need or if regular FBS works.
Hello Christina Hope-Borges,
Yes, that is the right way of proceeding with the experiment. You cannot use regular FBS.
Charcoal stripping involves treating FBS with activated carbon, which selectively absorbs non-polar/lipophilic compounds like estrogen. When you use charcoal-stripped FBS, you are providing a more controlled environment for studying the effects of estrogen, when you are adding it externally to the culture media.
So, when you use charcoal-stripped FBS, you may add known concentrations of estrogen to the culture media and observe the effects of estrogen on cell growth, behavior, or any other biological processes, free from interference from the naturally occurring hormone levels which is likely to be present in regular FBS.
Best,
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