Cell culture conditions and antigen expression - (May/19/2009 )

Hiya,

Just wondering if anyone has any ideas to help! I have been culturing human glioma cells in a range of different media - eg. DMEM + FBS or + human sera and serum free and have been doing flow cytometry to look at differential antigen expression. Indeed, I have got differential antigen expression and the cell surface antigens rather that intra cellular ones seem to be more affected! Has anyone a clue why this might be or how I can write this in my thesis? I know its to do with the serum but the manufacturers can't tell me what the exact differences in sera are apart from the obvious!!!

Many thanks,
Sam

Sera vary widely, so it is impossible to get it down to one or two things. You could try using serum free system medium and then adding common components of serum to see if it is one or a combination of factors. However, this will be very expensive and time consuming.