Fetal bovine serum (FBS) is a commonly used serum for cell culture. FBS is rich in various bioactive components, including growth factors, hormones, and nutrients. These components play important roles in cell growth, differentiation, and metabolism. In cell culture, fetal bovine serum is commonly used as an additive in the culture medium to provide the necessary nutrients and growth factors for cell growth.
Why choose bovine serum
Bovine serum is the most commonly used natural culture medium in cell culture, containing abundant nutrients necessary for cell growth and playing an extremely important role. Bovine serum is divided into calf serum, new bovine serum, and fetal bovine serum. Among them, fetal bovine serum is the highest quality serum because fetal bovine serum has not yet been exposed to the outside world, and the antibodies, complement, and other harmful components to cells contained in the serum are the least.
The main components of fetal bovine serum
• Protein
Including albumin, globulin, alpha macroglobulin, fetoprotein, transferrin, fibronectin (promoting cell adhesion and growth), etc;
• Peptides
Platelet growth factor, as well as fibroblast growth factor, epidermal growth factor, nerve cell growth factor, etc.
• Hormones
Contains insulin, growth factors, growth hormone, hydrocortisone, etc.
• Lipids
Serum contains small amounts of fatty acids, linoleic acid, oleic acid, ethanolamine, and phosphate ethanolamine.
• Other components
Contains amino acids, glucose, trace elements, trace elements such as iron, copper, zinc, as well as unknown components in some natural products.
The main function of fetal bovine serum
✔ Nutrients: Provides various essential nutrients for cells.
✔ Growth factors: promote cell growth and proliferation.
✔ Antibodies: help cells resist the invasion of certain pathogens.
✔ Reduce toxicity: Some components of the culture medium may be toxic to cells, and other components in fetal bovine serum can help neutralize or reduce these toxicities.
✔ Promoting cell-cell interactions: Certain components in fetal bovine serum can promote cell-cell interactions.
The main applications of fetal bovine serum
Cell culture has already been introduced earlier, so we won't go into more detail here.
Vaccine production
FBS is used as a culture medium additive in the production process of viral vaccines and other biological products to improve cell growth efficiency and virus production, such as influenza vaccines, rabies vaccines, etc.
Gene therapy and drug screening
FBS can provide a stable culture environment for gene transfection, gene editing, or drug sensitivity testing, helping to maintain stable cell expression or reactivity, thereby improving experimental reliability and reproducibility.
Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Engineering
During the construction of tissue engineering scaffolds and induction of stem cell differentiation into specific cell types, FBS provides necessary growth factors and environmental signals to promote directed cell differentiation and tissue formation.
• Biopharmaceuticals
FBS is used as a culture medium additive in the production of monoclonal antibodies, cytokines, enzymes, and other recombinant proteins, which helps to improve cell productivity and product quality.
Product selection of fetal bovine serum (Li Ji Biology)
[Product] Premium fetal bovine serum
[Product Code] AC03L155
[Specification] 500mL
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