Is it necessary to have pyruvate in the culture medium when culturing lung squamous carcinoma SK-MES-1 cells? Now the cells appear to be dying and in bad condition after three days of culturing in medium without pyruvate.
Hello Jie Wang
Pyruvate is one of the component of cell culture media. But it is generally not necessary for cell culture. It is a metabolite of glucose and can function as an extra source of carbon. Therefore, sodium pyruvate is commonly added to cell culture media as an additional source of energy. In addition, pyruvate is known as an antioxidant and as a potent scavenger of hydrogen peroxide.
Pyruvate is a supplement in some commercial formulations of cell culture media, but not in all. For instance, RPMI-1640 medium generally contains no pyruvate, whereas Dulbecco's Modified Eagle's Medium (DMEM) can be obtained without pyruvate or with 1 mM pyruvate. Unless it is specified to be added in the media as a supplement, you need not use pyruvate in the culture media.
The culture media for SK-MES-1 cells is EMEM + 2mM Glutamine + 1% Non Essential Amino Acids (NEAA) + 10% FBS.
Are you using this media?
Best.
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