Autoclavable low cost serum‐free cell culture media: The growth of established cell lines and production of Viruses

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Abstract
Five cell lines (BSC‐1, CHO, Balb/c 3T3, HeLa, and KB) have been grown in serum‐free media for several months with regular schedules of media changing and subculturing. The medium found to be successful in all cases was MEM‐α (without the ribosides and deoxyribosides) supplemented with 1% bactopeptone, although simple MEM [minimum essential medium (Eagle)] with bactopeptone (BP) gave fairly good growth in the case of BSC‐1 and 3T3 cells. The addition of insulin was necessary for CHO, 3T3, HeLa, and KB cells. Only the BSC‐1 cells grew exclusively as a monolayer in the serum‐free systems, the CHO, HeLa, and KB cells growing as stationary suspensions and the 3T3 cells growing as a combination of monolayer and suspension depending on the age of the culture and the nature of the growth surface. SV40 was produced in BSC‐1 cells grown and infected in the MEM‐α, bactopeptone medium and adenovirus‐2 was produced in spinners of HeLa and KB cells grown in MEM‐α, bactopeptone, PVP‐360, and insulin. The yield of virus and infectivity of the viruses produced were about the same as those produced in conventional serum‐containing systems.