Chair of Food Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany.
Lipids. 2021 Nov;56(6):613-616. doi: 10.1002/lipd.12321. Epub 2021 Aug 25.
Fetal bovine serum (FBS) has been used as a universal supplement in cell culture for more than six decades. This includes the investigation of lipid and lipid mediator formation and biology. Little is known about the (polyunsaturated) fatty acid composition and their oxidation products in FBS. Therefore, we analyzed six different FBS purchased from three different companies regarding their fatty acid and oxylipin concentrations. We found pronounced differences in the fatty acid concentrations. Even two batches of "standardized" FBS batches from one company showed drastic differences (e.g., for eicosapentaenoic acid 5 ± 1 μM vs. 11 ± 1 μM). Oxylipin concentrations also markedly differ between the FBS lots. The highest differences were found for 12-lipoxygenase products (e.g., 12-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid free 21-87 nM and total 58-108 nM), probably due to inconsistent serum generation procedures. Our results indicate that for cell culture studies dealing with lipid metabolism, researchers should carefully characterize their used FBS to ensure reliability and reproducibility of study outcomes.
胎牛血清（FBS）作为一种通用的细胞培养补充剂已经使用了六十多年。这包括对脂质和脂质介质形成和生物学的研究。关于 FBS 中的（多不饱和）脂肪酸组成及其氧化产物知之甚少。因此，我们分析了从三家不同公司购买的六种不同的 FBS，以确定它们的脂肪酸和氧化脂浓度。我们发现脂肪酸浓度存在明显差异。即使是一家公司的“标准化”FBS 批次也存在明显差异（例如，二十碳五烯酸的浓度为 5 ± 1 μM 与 11 ± 1 μM）。FBS 批次之间的氧化脂浓度也存在明显差异。12-脂氧合酶产物的差异最大（例如，12-羟二十碳四烯酸游离型 21-87 nM 和总型 58-108 nM），这可能是由于血清生成过程不一致。我们的研究结果表明，对于涉及脂质代谢的细胞培养研究，研究人员应仔细描述其使用的 FBS，以确保研究结果的可靠性和可重复性。
