Description

Minimum Essential Media MAX (MEM-MAX) in Hanks’ Buffer

Background

Minimum Essential Media MAX (MEM-MAX) in Hanks’ Buffer is a commonly used media for Mammalian cell culture.

Advantages

The advantages of MEM-MAX over MEM 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. 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 gradually releases 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) is a combination of L-alanyl-L-glutamine that prevents the degradation of L-glutamine.

Contents

Minimum Essential Media MAX (MEM-MAX) in Hanks’ Buffer 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 MEM-MAX based on the amount of Sodium Bicarbonate and HEPES (PH capacity)
• Phenol Red

MEM-MAX in HBBS contains no proteins, lipids, or growth factors. Therefore, it requires supplementation, commonly with 10% Fetal bovine Serum (FBS).

Formulation

For the complete formulation click here: MEM-MAX (HBSS) Formulation in Hanks’ Buffer

References

1. Culture of granulosa cells in collagen gels: the influence of cell shape on steroidogenesis. Carnegie JA, et al. Biol Reprod. 1988 May;38(4):881-90. doi: 10.1095/biolreprod38.4.881. PMID: 3401543
2. Myelin formation in rat dorsal root ganglion cultured in a serum-free medium. Ninomiya T, Takahashi K. J Anat. 1987 Jun;152:209-13. PMID: 3654371
3. Long-term organ culture of hamster cheek pouch mucosa. Mock D, Main JH. J Oral Pathol. 1976 Jul;5(4):237-40. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0714.1976.tb01770.x. PMID: 820846