I encountered Galactose Biotech Grade in several catalogues now. So i kept wondering what are the uses for Galactose in Cell Culture and Biotechnology in general.
Besides working as Carbohadrate in cell culture medium to get slower metabolism or similar i could not find any role.
Do you know any usercases or special cell lines that need this?
Galactose, unlike glucose, behaves differently when utilized as the sugar source of choice in mammalian cell culture. In cell culture studies such as shown in the articles attached, primary human myoblasts seem to have an enhanced aerobic metabolism when cultured with galactose. The myoblast cell line C2C12 also seems to be affected. This is suggestive of promotion of oxidative phosphorylation of cells when subjected to galactose as a respiratory substrate. Galactose also theoretically yields lesser ATP in glycolysis when compared to glucose and thus it would build more reliance on oxidative phosphorylation of it.
Article Galactose Enhances Oxidative Metabolism and Reveals Mitochon...
Article Low Glucose but Not Galactose Enhances Oxidative Mitochondri...
Hi there,
In yeast galactose may be used as an inducer for galactose dependent promoters just like IPTG or lactose for the lac promoter in bacteria.
Galactose is not the main fuel of cell glycolysis because it cant generate ATP as a source of energy but glucose generates 2ATP. So i recommend to use either sodium pyruvate or L and D glucose. Good luck
I don't agree with the comment above : Galactose has exactly the same yield as glucose in glycolysis (2ATP and 2NADH). Once phosphorylated by galactokinase, galactose1P is transformed into glucose6P (which is also obtained by phosphorylation from glucose) with no further expense and then enters glycolysis.
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