Alternatives to the use of fetal bovine serum: Human platelet lysates as a serum substitute in cell culture media (original) (raw)

Authors

Caroline Rauch Division of Physiology, Innsbruck Medical University, Innsbruck, Austria
Elisabeth Feifel Division of Physiology, Innsbruck Medical University, Innsbruck, Austria
Eva-Maria Amann Central Institute of Blood Transfusion and Immunology, University Hospital, Innsbruck, Austria
Hans Peter Spötl Central Institute of Blood Transfusion and Immunology, University Hospital, Innsbruck, Austria
Harald Schennach Central Institute of Blood Transfusion and Immunology, University Hospital, Innsbruck, Austria
Walter Pfaller Division of Physiology, Innsbruck Medical University, Innsbruck, Austria
Gerhard Gstraunthaler Division of Physiology, Innsbruck Medical University, Innsbruck, Austria

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14573/altex.2011.4.305

Keywords:

cell culture media, fetal bovine serum, serum-free cell culture, platelet lysates, non-animal alternatives

Abstract

The search for alternatives to the use of fetal bovine serum (FBS) in cell and tissue culture media has become a major goal in terms of the 3R principles in order to reduce or to avoid harvesting of FBS from bovine fetuses, and, in terms of Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), to ensure safe and animal product-free conditions for biomedical tissue engineering and (adult) stem cell therapy, respectively. In the present study, we investigated the feasibility of using platelet lysates (PL) as a substitute for FBS, based on the fact that most of the potent mitogenic factors present in serum are derived from activated thrombocytes.

Platelet lysates were obtained from outdated human donor platelet concentrates. Methods were established to activate human donor platelets in order to achieve a maximum yield of platelet α-granule growth factors. Platelet lysates were successfully introduced to grow and maintain anchorage-dependent and -independent human and animal cell lines. For cell culture experiments, cells were either grown in culture media supplemented with 10% FBS, 5% PL, or under serum-free conditions. Growth experiments, viability assays, and platelet lysate-induced activation of ERK1/2 mitogen-activated protein kinase revealed platelet lysates as a valuable alternative to FBS in cell culture media.

License

Articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is appropriately cited (CC-BY). Copyright on any article in ALTEX is retained by the author(s).

How to Cite

Rauch, C., Feifel, E., Amann, E.-M., Spötl, H. P., Schennach, H., Pfaller, W., & Gstraunthaler, G. (2011). Alternatives to the use of fetal bovine serum: Human platelet lysates as a serum substitute in cell culture media. ALTEX - Alternatives to Animal Experimentation, 28(4), 305-316. https://doi.org/10.14573/altex.2011.4.305

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