Cell culture medium powder

一、Definition

Cell culture medium powder is a raw material of cell culture medium in the form of dry powder. It is made by processing various nutrients required for cell growth into a powder form. This powder needs to be dissolved and prepared according to certain methods before use to form a liquid culture medium suitable for cell growth.

二、Components

1. Basic Nutritional Components
   • Amino Acids: It contains a variety of amino acids essential for cells to synthesize proteins. For example, in addition to common amino acids such as alanine and glycine, there are essential amino acids that cells cannot synthesize by themselves, such as lysine and tryptophan, which are essential basic substances for cell growth and proliferation.
   • Carbohydrates: It generally contains glucose and other monosaccharide or polysaccharide components. Glucose can provide energy for cell metabolism and is converted into ATP (adenosine triphosphate) through intracellular metabolic pathways such as glycolysis to maintain cellular life activities.
   • Vitamins: It includes a variety of vitamins such as B – group vitamins (e.g., vitamin B1, B2, B6, etc.). These vitamins play important roles in cell metabolism and act as coenzymes in numerous enzymatic reactions. For example, vitamin B1 participates in the oxidative decarboxylation of pyruvate, which is crucial for cell energy metabolism.
   • Inorganic Salts: It contains a variety of inorganic salt ions such as sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus. For example, sodium and potassium ions help maintain cell membrane potential, calcium ions participate in cell signaling and inter – cellular communication, magnesium ions are co – factors for many enzymes, and phosphate ions are necessary for nucleic acid and ATP synthesis.
2. Other Functional Components
   • Growth Factors and Hormones (in some culture medium powders): Some advanced cell culture medium powders may be added with trace amounts of growth factors. For example, epidermal growth factor (EGF) can promote cell proliferation, or hormones such as insulin to regulate cells’ uptake and metabolism of glucose.
   • Buffering Substances: It usually contains sodium bicarbonate and other buffering substances or components related to other buffering systems. Their role is to maintain the stability of the pH value of the culture medium during cell culture, ensuring that cells grow in a suitable acid – base environment, because cells will produce acidic or alkaline substances during growth and metabolism, which will affect the pH value of the culture medium.

三、Advantages

1. High Stability
   • When in powder form, various nutrients are less likely to undergo chemical reactions. Compared with liquid culture media, it avoids component decomposition or deterioration caused by factors such as liquid shaking and temperature changes during storage and transportation, and can maintain the effectiveness of its nutrients for a long time.
2. Convenient for Storage and Transportation
   • The volume of the powder is relatively small. With the same nutrient content, the space occupied by the powder is much smaller than that of liquid culture media, greatly saving storage space. At the same time, during transportation, there is no need to consider complex conditions such as preventing liquid leakage and maintaining cold storage as required for liquid culture media, reducing transportation costs and difficulties.
3. Flexible Preparation
   • Users can flexibly adjust the concentration of various components during the preparation process according to different cell types and experimental requirements. For example, for cells with slow growth, the addition amount of growth factors can be appropriately increased; for cells sensitive to osmotic pressure, the concentration of inorganic salts can be more precisely controlled to achieve the best cell culture effect.