Eagle’s Minimal Essential Medium-MAX (EMEM-MAX)

Description

Background

Eagle’s Minimal Essential Medium-MAX (EMEM-MAX) is a commonly used media for Mammalian cell culture.

Advantages

The advantages of EMEM-MAX over EMEM are:

• Higher PH Capacity
• Moreover, it contains 4 mM L-Alanyl-L-Glutamine (0.869 g/L) instead of L-Glutamine and therefore:
• Possess longer shelf life.
• More importantly, minimizes toxic ammonia build-up.
• Significantly improves cell viability and growth.
• Remains stable across a wide range of temperatures.
• Improves the culture of primary cells.

Mechanism

Although L-glutamine is a vital amino acid, it degrades, resulting in the generation of toxic ammonia and pyrrolidine carboxylic acid. One way to minimize L-glutamine degradation in media is to gradually add these amino acids to your cell culture. However, keeping track of time to keep the amount of L-glutamine at the same level is tedious, if not impossible.

Alternatively, L-alanyl-L-glutamine can be used because it is much more stable in aqueous solutions. More importantly, it does not easily degrade and is gradually cleaved by aminopeptidases. As a result, L-glutamine and L-alanine are then used by the cells for protein production in the TCA cycle.

In addition to our Max formulation products, we manufacture PurMa^TM GluaSup (Cat# P3S210 559), a combination of L-alanyl-L-glutamine which prevents degradation of L-glutamine.

Contents

Eagle’s Minimal Essential Medium-MAX (EMEM-MAX) contains:

• 5 mM sodium pyruvate
• High glucose (4.5g/L)
• Non-Essential Amino Acids
• 3.7 g/L Sodium Bicarbonate; PurMa Biologics Manufactures several types of EMEM based on the amount of Sodium Bicarbonate and HEPES (PH capacity)
• Phenol Red

Eagle’s Minimal Essential Medium-MAX (EMEM-MAX) contains no proteins, lipids, or growth factors. Therefore, it requires supplementation, commonly with 10% Fetal bovine Serum (FBS).

Formulation

The complete formulation for Eagle’s Minimal Essential Medium-MAX (EMEM-MAX) can be found here: EMEM-MAX Formulation 

References

1. Immunization and culture of rainbow trout organ sections in vitro. Anderson DP, et al. Vet Immunol Immunopathol. 1986 Jun;12(1-4):203-11. doi: 10.1016/0165-2427(86)90124-8. PMID:
2. Human plasma and amino acids as moderators of uptake and metabolic consequences of antifolates in WIL-2 and human leukemia cells. Fyfe MJ, et al. J Natl Cancer Inst. 1981 Mar;66(3):445-51. PMID:
3. Dextran T-500 improves survival and spreading of chick embryo cells in serum-free medium. Pietrzkowski Z, et al. Histochem Cytobiol. 1988;26(3):123-31. PMID:

Learn more: What Is EMEM?