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Polyvinylpyrrolidone can be Used to Cost‐Effectively Increase the Viscosity of Culture Media
Author(s) -
Denniss Steven,
Rush James
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.29.1_supplement.1029.19
Subject(s) - polyvinylpyrrolidone , viscometer , viscosity , chromatography , dextran , materials science , chemistry , analytical chemistry (journal) , biomedical engineering , polymer chemistry , medicine , composite material
The objective of this study was to examine of effect of polyvinylpyrrolidone(PVP) on the viscosity of Dulbecco's Modified Eagle's Medium (DMEM), a common media base used in in vitro cell culture and ex vivo organ culture experiments. The viscosity of solutions of DMEM with either 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, or 10% PVP (40000 molecular weight) w/v prepared at 37 ͦ C were measured (n=4‐6 per solution) using a viscosimeter assembled using commercially‐available laboratory equipment (consisting of a syringe pump, pressure transducers, and rigid tubing). The viscosities (measured in centipoise) of the prepared medias were as follows: 1.141±0.012 (approximately that of water), 1.477±0.013, 2.010±0.005, 2.658±0.024, 3.501±0.016, 4.044±0.011 (approximately that of blood), and 4.453±0.022 for the 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, and 10% PVP‐DMEM, respectively. There was a roughly linear increase in viscosity across this 0‐10% range of PVP concentrations. PVP did not alter the pH of the media at any concentration. The cost of increasing the viscosity of DMEM to that of blood (i.e. ~ 4.0 centipoise) would have been ~ 5x more expensive to accomplish if using dextran, a compound commonly used by experimenters to increase the viscosity of the media in their experiments. These data demonstrate that PVP may be a cost‐effective way to increase the viscosity of culture media. Funded by NSERC.