I want to culture human hepatocytes but do not have the required complete hepatocyte culture medium. Is there other complete culture medium composition I can use in place of the complete hepatocyte culture medium? Is it possible to use RPMI to prepare the complete culture medium?
You can find some articles which use non-specific hepatocyte medium. The majority of them use only Williams E medium (without serum). Also, you can find researchers who use DMEM, for instance. Remember that you can just keep hepatocytes in culture for very short time.
It really depends what you are trying to do. There are quite a few hepatocyte specific mediums to choose from on the market. Most of them are Williams E Medium based, and can be serum containing or serum free. The basic additives you need for a proper hepatocyte maintenance medium are l-glutamine (or a derivative), insulin, dexamethasone. However, people have started to get creative with long term mediums by adding BSA, vitamin B3 (nicotinamide), and specific growth factors such as EGF and HGF.
Going back to the beginning, it really depends what you are trying to answer with your culture, to determine the appropriate formulation.
There is a Primary Human Hepatocytes webinar coming up that may able to help address your questions.
Title: Current State and Future Prospects for Primary Human Hepatocytes in Basic Research Applications
Presenter: Edward L. LeCluyse, Ph.D. Principal Scientist, LifeNet Health Date: Tuesday, June 5, 2018 Times: 1PM (EST) / 12 PM (CST)
Duration: 60 minutes
To register for the event, visit: SigmaAldrich.com/PHHWebinar
What you will learn:
- Current challenges with the use of primary hepatocytes for basic research applications
- The state of the art in tissue procurement and hepatocyte isolation techniques; Improved measures for the characterization and validation of primary hepatocytes lots for specific research applications
- Efforts towards creating universal standards and quality metrics for the use of human tissues and cells for basic research applications
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- Similar topics
- Cell Biology
- Methods