Effects of serum-free culture media on human liver and fibroblastic cells.

The morphological aspects and amino acid variations of human fibroblast and liver cell monolayer cultures were studied in serum free media. Under these conditions, the behaviour of the two cell types differed greatly. The morphological changes for the liver cells, as compared with the fibroblasts, appear more quickly and some of these changes are particular. Furthermore, extracellular amino acid variations are of lesser importance for the liver cells, during the 10 days following the suppression of serum, except for serine.