Biochemistry

Studying lipid metabolism in cultured cells is complicated by the fact that cells are typically cultured in the presence of animal serum, which contains a wide, variable, and undefined variety of lipid species. Lipid metabolism can impact cell physiology, signaling, and proliferation, and the ability to culture cells in the absence of exogenous lipids can reveal the importance of lipid biosynthesis pathways and facilitate the generation of media with defined lipid species. We have adapted a protocol to remove lipids from serum without eliminating its ability to support the proliferation of cells in culture. This method requires di-isopropyl ether and butanol and can be used to generate small batches of lipid-stripped serum in four days. The resulting serum supports proliferation of many cell lines in culture and can be used to compare the metabolism of cells in lipid replete and depleted conditions.