Marine cyanobacterium Spirulina maxima as an alternate to the animal cell culture medium supplement

Gun-Hoo Park,Yeon-Ji Lee,Yong-Kyun Ryu,Woon-Yong Choi,Areumi Park,Won-Kyu Lee,Su-Jin Lee,Do-Hyung Kang,Youngdeuk Lee,Younsik Jeong

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-84558-2

Abstract

Serum is a stable medium supplement for in vitro cell culture. Live cells are used in stem cell research, drug toxicity and safety testing, disease diagnosis and prevention, and development of antibiotics, drugs, and vaccines. However, use of serum in culture involves concerns such as an ethical debate regarding the collection process, lack of standardized ingredients, and high cost. Herein, therefore, we evaluated the possibility of using edible cyanobacterium (Spirulina maxima), which is a nutrient-rich, sustainable, and ethically acceptable source, as a novel substitute for fetal bovine serum (FBS). H460 cells were cultured to the 10th generation by adding a mixture of spirulina animal cell culture solution (SACCS) and FBS to the culture medium. Cell morphology and viability, cell cycle, apoptosis, proteomes, and transcriptomes were assessed. We observed that SACCS had better growth-promoting capabilities than FBS. Cell proliferation was promoted even when FBS was replaced by 50–70% SACCS; there was no significant difference in cell shape or viability. There were only slight differences in the cell cycle, apoptosis, proteomes, and transcriptomes of the cells grown in presence of SACCS. Therefore, SACCS has the potential to be an effective, low-cost, and eco-friendly alternative to FBS in in vitro culture.

Highlights

Effects of S. maxima[19,20,21,22,23]
spirulina animal cell culture solution (SACCS) and fetal bovine serum (FBS) showed no significant difference in salinity and pH and showed similar characteristics (Fig. 1G) that facilitate the ideal culture of c ells[28]
The cell death mechanism was identified with proteomic analysis, and it was confirmed that ubiquitin was expressed when the FBS concentration was reduced to 3% or less (Fig. 6)

Summary

Introduction

Effects of S. maxima[19,20,21,22,23]. the complete nutritional, immunological, and physiological functions of Spirulina remain unknown owing to a lack of diverse and advanced approaches. There is a need to develop novel technologies to study the practical applications of marine Spirulina-derived medicines and biomaterials. As S. maxima contains components such as proteins, minerals, trace elements, and lipids that assist in cell growth and proliferation, it has a higher protein content than commonly used Spirulina platensis[24], it has the potential to replace FBS as a cell culture supplement. This strain, unlike land crops, contains many nutritional ingredients that can exert multiple effects on cell lines in a single extract. The current study aimed to investigate the extraction, physical properties, biocompatibility, and range of use of S. maxima extract for its application as an FBS alternative

Methods

Results

Conclusion