Serum contains cytokines, growth factors and immunoactive proteins at undefined concentrations. If you are measuring IDO, PGE2 or TSG-6 from MSCs expanded in serum, you are measuring a mixture — not your cells.
MSC immunomodulation research depends on attributing paracrine signals to the cells, not the medium. Serum-based expansion introduces a background of bovine cytokines, complement fragments and immunoglobulins that co-purify with MSC conditioned medium and interfere with downstream immunosuppression assays.
CelliMax MSC1 expands MSCs in a chemically defined, protein-minimised formulation. The result is a defined baseline: what you detect in conditioned medium comes from your MSCs, not from serum carry-over.
Applications where defined expansion pays off
- Cytokine profiling: clean background for Luminex / ELISA panels — IDO, IL-6, IL-10, VEGF, HGF without bovine signal interference
- T-cell suppression assays: MSC conditioned medium from defined culture gives reproducible suppression curves — serum lots shift EC50 unpredictably
- PGE2 and COX-2 quantification: defined medium avoids arachidonic acid precursors from serum that drive background PGE2
- Licensing assays (IFN-g + TNF-a co-stimulation): consistent baseline MSC responsiveness across experiments — no inter-lot variability in starting immunophenotype
For conditioned medium (MSC-CM) production
If your workflow involves harvesting MSC-CM for downstream use — in co-culture, organoid or in vivo models — CelliMax MSC1 enables serum-free conditioning. The resulting CM has no animal-derived background. Volume pricing and GMP-grade supply available for larger CM production pipelines.
Defined composition, documented lot-to-lot consistency. Request the technical data sheet.
