Panserin 401 is a complete ready for use medium for the serumfree cultivation of a multitude of adherent and nonadherent cells.


Composition:

Based on Iscove’s MEM, trace elements, albumin, cholesterol, soya lipids and vitamins were added to the medium. It does not contain any growth or attachment factors.


Suitability:

Panserin 401 is a multi-purpose medium suitable for a variety of cells. In Panserin 401 adherent as well as nonadherent cells can be cultivated. As the medium contains no growth factors there is a possibility to investigate the special effects of added growth factors to the cell culture. Panserin 401 does not contain any attachment factors. With some cell types a pre-treatment of the incubation dishes with gelatine, collagen, poly-D-lysine or fibronectin can considerably facilitate the culture under serumfree conditions or even enable it. Please note the above applies to low seeding densities.
With every adaption to serumfree media, changes of the cells should be taken into consideration. These changes can concern the morphology, the karyotype, the surface marker etc. Thus cells in serumfree medium don’t always have to be identical with those from the culture containing serum in which they originate (selection).

Among others the following cells have been cultivated successfully:

• Macrophages
• Fibroblasts
• Melanocytes
• Carcinoma cells
• HEK-cells
• HeLa-cells
• CHO-cells
• Lymphocytes
• Hybridoma

Application:

In many cases the switch from serum-containing to serumfree cultivation can be done without any special adaption procedures. For those cells which do not tolerate an immediate switch we recommend a primary culture with serum containing medium and a stepwise reduction of medium towards a serumfree cultivation. We can provide you with an adaption protocol for many cells. This stepwise adaption will also be supported by higher cell seeds or using the lowered serum concentration after attachment in adherent cells For the successful transfer into serumfree cultivation the vitality of the cells is an important factor. Thus the cells should be transferred in the logarithmic growth phase. According to our experience the transfer in the stationary growth phase will have lower prospects of success.

In adherent cells it should be assured that – if trypsin is used for detachment – the enzyme is completely washed out or is inactivated by trypsin-inhibitors for the serum to have no neutralizing effect.

In some cases of very sensitive cells it could be also reasonable to do the stepwise adaption and dilution not only with serum but also with the used medium. Panserin media were developed to support the cell growth without the use of serum. Thus the all-round version (Panserin 401) does not contain any further growth factors. The analysis of externally added growth factors will be more specific. For cells which are dependent on specific growth factors these factors should be added in the required concentrations.

b) Charlini Rasaratnam; Pre-treatment with vitamin C reduces Cr(VI)-induced cytotoxicity. Report carried out as a requirement of the M.SC program in the occupational health sciences. Department epidemilogy, biostatistics and occupational health. McGill University. January 18th, 2008.