We are working on formulating a complex semi-defined medium to support the growth of a diverse, gut microbiome–like community. The original recipe we are referencing includes “digested serum” as one of the components, but we’ve been unable to locate this product commercially. We’re looking for suitable alternatives that could provide comparable nutritional support—ideally something that mimics the peptide, amino acid, and growth factor content of digested serum.
We’ve encountered a similar issue when working with complex intestinal microbiota, especially when aiming for both diversity and reproducibility in culture-based studies.
If digested serum is unavailable or undesirable due to its undefined nature, several well-supported alternatives can be used in semi-defined media formulations:
You might also consider using a culturomics approach: combining multiple formulations, oxygen levels, and incubation times to better simulate the diversity and structure of the original microbiota.
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