Nature of the iron requirement for Chinese hamster V79 cells in tissue culture medium

Abstract

The Chinese hamster V79 cell line can be grown in medium containing iron instead of lactalbumin hydrolysate and containing defined low molecular weight components instead of peptone. A rather large amount of inorganic iron must be supplied for optimum growth. Dose-response curves done with commercially available transferrins from various species show that this Chinese hamster cell line grows well with human and rabbit transferrins but poorly with porcine, bovine, and chicken egg white (conalbumin) transferrins. An assay of Chinese hamster serum in the presence and absence of iron shows that hamster serum is better at providing the V79 cells with iron than human or rabbit transferrin. Thus, the nature of the iron requirement of V79 cells lies in the requirement for a specific transferrin.