Are You Getting The Cell Culture Media You Expected?

Cell culture media blends often include a primary carbon source (e.g. glucose), nitrogen source (e.g. glutamine), buffers and other components like amino acids, vitamins, salts, trace minerals and other additives. One of the most commonly used cell media types is DMEM/F-12. This media is a blend of two established chemically defined cell medias called DMEM (Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle’s Medium) and Ham’s F-12. DMEM/F-12 contains high concentrations of amino acids, its formulation is well known, and it can be purchased from numerous vendors.

Reproducibility is at the basis of all scientific discovery, so we wanted to glimpse into the consistency of DMEM/F-12 media across several providers. As this quick snapshot shows, consistency between vendors should not be assumed. In some cases, certain media components were as high as 2.5x the expected values whereas other components were not detected at all.