We found that the tumor cells had different response on our drugs under 1% FBS or 10% FBS condition. 1% FBS condition, drugs decrease EGF expression, but 10% FBS condition, drugs increase EGF expression. What does it means? Why people use low serum to culture tumor cells?
Serum (especially fetal) contains a mixture of growth factors (VEGF, EGF, TGFalpha and so on), which can stimulate proliferation, survival, motility, metabolism and so on. Therefore these growth factors from the serum can contribute to overcoming the inhibitory potential of the drugs. When I was testing my drugs I was performing experiments in medium without serum, only with BSA, transfferin and selen. Cancer cells have the autocrine loops, what means that they can produce their own growth factors and they have the receptors for them on their membrane. Therefore they can survive without serum. Then you can see what happen to the cell without interference from the serum.
serum contains many growth factors and proteins that can interfere with your substance or drug you want to be tested . It is better to decrease from 10% FBS to 5% or 2% according to your cells.
Why people use low serum to culture tumor cells? Serum can stimulate proliferation, survival, of cells, but ,Cancer cells produce growth factors enough for its proliferation so there is no need to use high serum to culture tumor cells.
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