Why use fetal calf serum for cell culture? - Why not use Fetal pig serum? (Apr/26/2006 )
I just wondering....
why we use fetal calf serum in tissue culture and not other animal fetal serum, eg. pig?
i think it is just based on source of availability and feasibility.
for 10 litres of serum we need single animal(bovine), in other case we need multiple number, for same yeild.
so, in choosing the animal of interest, there r several parameters to look at,
if u kill an animal how many different ways u can use it. in other words how u can reduce the wastage.
bovine sps - can be used as food, for research(FBS), leather can be used, easy to handle n
maintain them (spicies r common through out the world)
horse sps - i m not sure how many people like it as food, we can use for research (serum), it is
little bit difficult to maintain them
pigs -can be used as food, for research (serum), easy to maintain them, but require high
number so lot of space is required.
i m not an experienced person, in analysis, since u raised the question, i tried to look at it and see the possible ways.
wat is ur opinion?
hope we will get good comments from our members
i also agree, think its purely an economic factor
We don't always just use fetal bovine serum though ... one of my cell line's complete growth medium calls for horse serum instead of fetal bovine serum. But why those specifically ... I think probably because they can be easily maintained in a controlled environment and perhaps the amount of blood you can get from a fetal calf or horse as opposed to a fetal pig (just looking at size). You could draw more blood from one baby and they would be easier to monitor and test for viruses (most likely). I know that the fetal calf serum has an additional growth factor that you can't get from adult bovine serum. This is all just speculation though.
It could be a global conspiracy by the pigs against the cows
But it's more likely to be simply logistical - bigger animal = more serum
Thinking of using fetal mouse serum Minnie?
While econimics play a large part in the availability of serum, I believe the selection of one serum type over another is largely due to the presence (or absence) or certain required growth factors. For example, I've noticed in some of my own experiments that horse serum contains particular secreted growth factors that FBS does not. This was discovered when doing westerns for a particular growth factor on media samples containing small amounts of horse serum.
Thank you for answering my question.
I got another question.
How is serum collected from the fetal calf?
I don;t know exactly but I have a fair idea, and my guess is the calf doesn't come out of the procedure looking too well