I am doing a cell survival assay on cultured stromal cells (obtained from primary culture).
How long does the average stromal cell live without serum (FCS/similar nutrition)? I intend to put some cells in pure RPMI-1640 (without FCS, BSA, etc) for certain conditions in the experiment.
Dear Thomas Li,
This is very dependent on the organism within each of the groups you mention. While for the most part, archea are the extremophiles and have the ability to withstand many extreme conditions, nutrient limitation survival greatly varies. I think you could easily find organisms in each group that could withstand nutrient limitation well.
A good example would be yeast, which is a single celled organism you may have actually worked with. If you take laboratory yeast, in their diploid state, and starve them, they will undergo meiosis, and in their spore form, live for a very very long time without nutrients, protected by their ascus (which is actual their dead mother cell).
Yeast can also completely desiccate and still live. When you pick up an active yeast packet for baking, those yeast have not only been starved, but have been completely sucked dry of their water. Yet when you add water back, they live (though a great number of them will die).
I think in general, most single celled organisms have a certain tolerance for low nutrient conditions. This does happen to them a lot. All it means is they slow their cell cycle down, stop dividing, and just undergo a caution period. There is all sorts of signaling in the cells that sense the nutrients, and slow growth based on their conditions.
Sincerely yours!
Dr. Bratko Filipič
Email: [email protected]
From my own experience, primary cells culture contaminants such as fibroblasts are able to survive more than a week in culture medium w/o serum.
As noted by others, survival of cells in cell culture medium such as RPMI-1640 without serum (growth factors) depends on cell-type- mainly the primary versus transformed. Because transformed cells secrete growth factors, they are likely to survive longer than the primary cells.
As Flavie Sicardi stated, we can find fibroblasts, adipocytes, macrophages. It will also depend on the doubling time, on the growth conditions, cell culture medium without serum. The main problem is the possibility of mold growth if you leave for a long time.
I have experience with endometrial stomal cells and they can survive more than a month in a pure RPMI-1640. The survival rate in pure medium is much better in comparison with endometrial epithelial cells. Of course the results are better if you add FSA during the first 48 hours of incubation (untill >70% confluence) and then replace this medium with pure RPMI-1640.
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