A serum-free medium that supports the growth of cultured skeletal muscle satellite cells

Summary A serum-free medium has been devised that supports the proliferation and differentiation of primary cultures of rat skeletal muscle satellite cells for up to 4 d. The medium consists of a mixture of Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium and MCDB-104 plus insulin, dexamethasone, pituitary fibroblast growth factor, Deutsch fetuin, and linoleic acid. In addition to promoting the formation of myotubes from satellite cells, a decrease in fibroblast contamination of these cultures was observed when cultures grown in serum-free medium were compared to cultures grown in serum-containing medium. This work was supported by the Arizona Agriculture Experiment Station, Project No. R11, U.S. Public Health Service Grant R01 AG03393, Lilly Research Laboratoires, and Merck Institute for Therapeutic Research. This communication is Arizona Agriculture Experiment Station Journal Paper No. 3966.