What does fetal bovine serum do?

What does fetal bovine serum do?

Fetal bovine serum (FBS) is a byproduct of harvesting cattle for the meatpacking industry—it’s used extensively by both academic and industrial researchers as a supplement to basal growth medium in cell culture applications. FBS is the liquid portion that remains after blood is drawn from bovine fetus coagulates.

How do you activate fetal bovine serum?

Place the thawed bottle of serum into a 56°C water bath containing enough water to immerse the bottle to just above the level of the serum. Begin timing for 30 minutes. Swirl the serum every 5 to 10 minutes to ensure uniform heating and to prevent protein coagulation at the bottom of the bottle.

Why is fetal bovine serum used in cell culture?

Fetal bovine serum is the most widely used serum-supplement for the in vitro cell culture of eukaryotic cells. This is due to it having a very low level of antibodies and containing more growth factors, allowing for versatility in many different cell culture applications.

How is FBS produce?

Fetal bovine serum (FBS) is a common component of animal cell culture media. It is harvested from bovine fetuses taken from pregnant cows during slaughter. FBS is commonly harvested by means of a cardiac puncture without any form of anaesthesia.

What is unborn calf blood used for?

The serum which is obtained from fetal blood, is used for scientific purposes such as vaccine production. RSPCA Australia advocates the use of non-animal alternatives instead of blood being collected from fetuses and for these to be developed as quickly as possible.

Is fetal bovine serum ethical?

Fetal bovine serum is both a scientifically and a morally problematical product. Its application in cell culture experiments represents a scientific problem, as FBS is undefined, and changes in its composition may interfere with the outcome of experiments.

What is the difference between fetal bovine serum and fetal calf serum?

Fetal Bovine Serum is the same as Fetal Calf Serum. There is no difference and semantics have no place in science, and anyone working with cells should know that. It comes from calves already born and typically doesn’t have the levels of growth factors that FBS contains.

Can you filter serum?

At any rate viscosity of the serum wont allow you to filter it using normal 0.2 um filters. If FBS is being shared in the lab and is not stored in single use aliquots, I would add it into the medium at 10% and filter sterlize it together with the complete medium.

What growth factors are in fetal bovine serum?

Bovine serum albumin is the major component of FBS. Growth factors in FBS are essential for the maintenance and growth of cultured cells [1, 2]. FBS also contains a variety of small molecules like amino acids, sugars, lipids, and hormones.

What does fetal bovine serum contain?

Fetal bovine serum (FBS) is the liquid fraction of clotted blood from fetal calves, depleted of cells, fibrin and clotting factors, but containing a large number of nutritional and macromolecular factors essential for cell growth.

When was fetal bovine serum first used?

1950s
In the late 1950s, Theodore Puck first introduced the use of FBS with the purpose of encouraging cellular proliferation. For several decades, the use of fetal bovine serum has been ubiquitous across laboratories worldwide.

How do you sterilize fetal bovine serum?

A common treatment of FBS is heat-inactivation, where FBS is heated at 56°C for 30 minutes in a water bath with occasional shaking. The purpose is to inactivate whatever components of the complement system are present in the FBS [24], and other potential unknown inhibitors of cell growth.