Use of cyanobacterial gas vesicles as oxygen carriers in cell culture

The gas vesicles isolated from the cells of filamentous cyanobacterium Anabaena flos-aquae were treated and sterilized with glutaraldehyde and then evaluated for their effectiveness as gas carriers in cell culture. Anchorage-dependent Vero cells were grown in a packed bed of microcarrier beads under the perfusion of Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle’s Medium with 1% serum. The culture medium supplemented with 1.8% (v/v) gas vesicles was found to support a 30% higher maximum glucose utilization rate than the same medium without gas vesicles. The gas vesicle suspension was confirmed to have no apparent effects on cell metabolism in T-flask cultures. The study results indicated that the gas vesicles, with high oxygen carrying capacity, can be used to increase the oxygen supply in cell culture systems.