Hi everyone,
I've been read in many literatures that during cytotoxicity assay, when we want to evaluate the effect of a defined compound on the gene regulation in a cell line, or even in some other tests like MTT, serum concentration in complete medium has to be reduced. Could anyone suggest a clear explanation for the reason of this reduction ?
For other assays, the reduction in the Serum is made in order to mantain the cellular polulation stable, without significant cellular growth, And be able to determine the real effect of the added compound,
Dear Sequra,
Thanks for your reply, but in fact reducing serum concentration in some cell lines like MRC-5 will lead to cell detachment and even death. Moreover when we used control group in the experiment, is it really necessary to maintain the cell count stable ? would you please explain more ?
Hi Ramin,
Usually, the cells are serum deprived in the culture media during a migration test. In that way you can observed the migration of the cells instead of proliferation. You can also starve your cells if you want to know if the effect that you mesure is mediated by a paracrine or endocrine system.
However, I never heard that you have to starve your cells before a gene expression analysis. I don't think that modifying your culture system will improved your result, specially if the serum is necessary for the cell line viability. In my opinion, the most important is that your control cells are cultured in the same way that your treated cells.
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