Leibovitz’s L-15 Medium – MAX

Description

Background

Leibovitz’s L-15 Medium – MAX is one of the commonly used Media for Mammalian cell culture.

Advantages

The advantages of Leibovitz’s L-15 MAX over Leibovitz’s L-15 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, generating toxic ammonia and pyrrolidine carboxylic acid. Therefore, one way to minimize L-glutamine degradation in media is to gradually add these amino acids to your cell culture.  Unfortunately, maintaining a consistent level of L-glutamine by tracking time can be a tedious and potentially impossible task.

Alternatively, L-alanyl-L-glutamine can be used since it is much more stable in aqueous solutions. More importantly, it does not easily degrade and gradually releases aminopeptidases. As a result, L-glutamine and L-alanine are 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 that prevents the degradation of L-glutamine.

Contents

Leibovitz’s L-15 Medium – 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 Leibovitz’s L-15 MAX based on the amount of Sodium Bicarbonate and HEPES (PH capacity)
• Phenol Red

Leibovitz’s L-15 MAX contains no proteins, lipids, or growth factors. Therefore, it requires supplementation, commonly with 10% Fetal bovine Serum (FBS).

Formulation

The complete formulation is here: Leibovitz’s L-15 MAX Formulation

References

• The effects of insulin, transferrin and androgens on rat prostate explants in serum-free organ culture. Nguyen-Le XK, Brière N, Corcos J. 1997;6(3):339-49. doi: 10.1002/biof.5520060304. PMID: 9288404.
• Expression of differentiation molecules is preserved in human fetal kidneys during culture. Brière N, Droz D.Acta Histochem. 1990;89(2):157-66. doi: 10.1016/s0065-1281(11)80351-x.PMID: 2093265

Learn more: What Is L-15 Medium?