Irvine Scientific introduces xeno-free T cell growth medium
Part of the California, US-headquartered firm’s range of animal serum-free growth media, the PRIME-XV T Cell CDM media has been introduced for manufacturers looking to aid consistency in the growth of T cells.
According to the firm this is the first T cell specific media to be both chemically-defined and animal component-free.
“The formulation meets the industrial cell culture/biopharmaceutical industry definition of chemically-defined and animal component-free at the tertiary level,” Jessie H.-T. Ni, CSO at Irvine Scientific told us.
“T-cell mediated immunotherapy for treating various diseases requires ex vivo production of specific T cell subsets to high cell densities, without loss of desired T cell phenotypes and functionality.”
Undefined media components such as cytokines contained in serum may impact the efficiency of generating these desired T cell populations, they explained, while a media which is not chemically defined may contain undefined and potentially inhibitory components that could affect the efficiency and consistency necessary for immunotherapy applications.
Fetal bovine serum (FBS) is currently deemed the “gold-standard” for CAR T cells due to it having a content of embryonic growth promoting factors and a low level of antibodies, but – as a by-product from the dairy industry – there have been concerns about its poor characterization and the potential for transmitting bovine diseases.
“When compared with media supplemented with three different lots of bovine serum (at 10% serum), PRIME-XV T Cell CDM delivered consistent performance and showed a 30% – 400% improvement in expansion of human peripheral blood-derived CD3+ T cells than the media supplemented with bovine-derived serum,” Ni told us.
“This dramatic difference in expansion rates highlights how variable the performance can be between lots of serum.”
