Celprogen Inc., has designed a cell culture medium for growing stem cells of all types in the laboratory that does not contain any animal products. Such a medium is called “Xeno-free.”
This new xeno-free medium, XFS2 can successfully culture induced pluripotent stem cells, primary human cells, stem cells and progenitor cells. XFS2 can also be used to grow cancer cell for research purposes.
Growing stem cells in cell culture requires a unique mixture of growth factors that stimulate cell proliferation and cell survival. Because stem cells can grow in XFS2 without differentiating, it can be used to grow cells for clinical trials s well.
Celprogen scientists have used XFS2 to grow human embryonic stem cells, fat-derived stem cells, and stem cells isolated from specific human organs. A chief advantage of XFS2 is that it does not contain any human serum, which is essential for clinical applications, since patients could have serious immunological reactions against serum that does not come from their own blood.
When stem cells grown in XFS2 were compared with stem cells grown in other cell culture media, the XFS2-grown cells did not display any detectable differences from their serum-grown counterparts. Furthermore, according to Celprogen, stem and progenitor cells grew robustly in XFS2. We will certainly need to see the reactions of laboratories who chose to use XFS2 to grow their stem cells before we can confirm or deny this.
Celprogen hopes that their safe and xeno-free XFS2 medium will facilitate the potential application of stem cell transplantation for the treatment of various diseases, and Celprogen is equally hopeful that their new medium will prove itself to be safe, give reproducible results, and a high-quality medium for the propagation of stem and progenitor cells in the laboratory.
Has anyone used XFS2 to grow their stem or progenitor cells in the laboratory yet? If so, let me know how it works.