What is FCS? - (May/18/2007 )

Fetal calf serum? I cant understand this name .
And I cant find it on any company(e.g. Gibco, Sigma and Hyclone)'s catalog.
Will someone please explain it to me?
Thanks

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Yes it is fetal calf serum. Several companies sell it. We specifically use ES-tested FCS which just means we grow ES cells in it and see if they grow fine and don't differentiate etc... to test it, but I assume you are using it for normal cell culture work... same thing.

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Thank you.
Yes I want to use it for dendritic cells culture.
I thought it was bovine calf serum.
Which campanies sell it? And what is the orgin? calf? fetal bovine? or a mix?

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check for FBS. fetal bovine serum, in the catalogues.

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and please, make sure you know whether you need fetal serum or calf serum...big difference in the performance of some cell lines, if you choose the wrong one for your application

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I found this one: Newborn Calf Serum is collected from domestic bovine calves weighing less than 650 lbs. It is an economical alternative to FBS and is suitable for many cell culture applications

See also in forum archive FBS & FCS: any difference?
and this http://www.invitrogen.com/downloads/B_08A0...SInsert_bro.pdf
http://www.fetalbovineserum.com/

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Dear All,

FCS and FBS are one and the same. The country of origin is very important......which area make's the highest quality serum?........ I know but do you. It is VERY IMPORTANT to BATCH TEST your serum i.e. if you use different batches then YOU WILL INTRODUCE ERROR into your experimentation.
Do you use heat inactivated or non heat inactivated serum?....this is also very important.
Make sure also that elements that can be introduced into the serum that can affect your experiments are tested for i.e Endotoxin levels, important if you are looking at inducible enzymes.

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