Thursday, August 7, 2014

Study explores culture media for Drosophila cells

Burnette M, Brito-Robinson T, Li J, Zartman J. An inverse small molecule screen to design a chemically defined medium supporting long-term growth of Drosophila cell lines. Mol Biosyst. 2014 Aug 6. PMID: 25096480.

From the abstract: "Drosophila cell culture is used as a model system with multiple applications ...  To characterize the minimal requirements for long-term maintenance of Drosophila cell lines, we developed an inverse screening strategy to identify small molecules and synergies stimulating proliferation in a chemically defined medium. ... Validated factors were investigated for their ability to maintain cell growth over multiple passages in the chemically defined medium (CDM). The polyamine spermidine proved to be the critical component that enables the CDM to support long-term maintenance of Cl.8 cells. Spermidine supplementation upregulates DNA synthesis for Cl.8 and S2 cells and increases MAPK signaling for Cl.8 cells. The CDM also supports the long-term growth of Kc167 cells. Our target scoring approach validated the importance of polyamines ... Future iterations of the screen will enable the identification of compound combinations optimized for specific applications ... thus increasing the versatility of Drosophila cell culture as both a genetic and biochemical model system. ..."

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