I would like to know if there is any difference in culturing MCF10A cell line with FBS instead of Horse Serum. I've seen several protocols (including Brugge's lab) culturing the cell line with Horse Serum. Does anyone know if there's any difference using FBS?
Dear Li,
Usually horse serum is more "rich" in terms of nutriments than FBS, and lacks also some toxic ingredients against certain types of cells.
In my research unit, we are using horse serum when we must employ "fragile" cells, as for example when we establish primocultures from human tissues.
Best regards
Robert
great comments here : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4040117/
Best
We had a negative experience with MCF10A cells until we used a protocol with horse serum. It seems to be the best choice for this cell type.
Best regards,
Juan
As it mentioned by the others HS is the best but You could try 5% more FBS if it is a low endotoxin FBS.
Do we need to heat inactivate the horse serum prior to adding it to the media for culturing the MCF10As?
Ritu Jaiswal,
Here you can find some information regarding serum inactivation:
http://bitesizebio.com/23706/heat-inactivation-of-serum-for-tissue-culture-is-it-necessary/
Thanks for that Lara. I came across this article as well. However, was just wondering what most people do when growing these cells. Do the cells look happier with heat inactivated serum (since they cells can have problems) or it doesn't really matter?
In my case I do not inactivate the serum and the cells grow normally.
Hi Mustafa.
I have only tried DMEM, DMEM-F12 and MEGM media to grow the MCF10A cells. For MCF7 I use DMEM. I have never worked with MCF-12A, sorry.
Horse serum has less protein content and fatty acid content than FBS. I tried to culture MCF10A once with FBS and another with horse serum. Cells were growing much faster in DMEM/F12 media containing horse serum than FBS.
Thanks Mustafa! I see the same: they grow much better with Horse Serum
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