I would like to exclude the effect of IGF (among other GF) on cell activity.
Dear Anna,
my suggestion is to start with a serum free medium and then add growth factors or supplements in a controlled fashion, e.g. you may add the ITS supplement which contains insulin but not IGF, and can sustain the cells in serum-free conditions. Other factors/proteins depending on the considered cell types may also be added, starting from purified albumin and continuing with growth factors, but this is cell type-dependent.
Most media (DMEM, RPMI 1640 etc) won't contain any added growth factors. If your experiment is only a short term one, you can exclude the use of FBS. If you need to use FBS, you could try heat inactivated FBS but I am unsure if the levels of IGF are affected by heating.
Depending on what cell line/type you are using you may be able to a serum free media like MCDB 131 or Corning SF media.
Dear Anna,
my suggestion is to start with a serum free medium and then add growth factors or supplements in a controlled fashion, e.g. you may add the ITS supplement which contains insulin but not IGF, and can sustain the cells in serum-free conditions. Other factors/proteins depending on the considered cell types may also be added, starting from purified albumin and continuing with growth factors, but this is cell type-dependent.
you can replace serum by Caryoser or ADCM, these are serum IGFfree substitutes.
Otherwise you can dialyzed FBS, which will retain its nutritional capacity.
If it is not a long term culture you can replace FBS by 0.1%BSA to supplement the media. Good luck!
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