Help with media filtration - (Nov/02/2012 )

Hi

I'm new in cell culture lab. Now I start to prepare media and other reagents. My cells is cultured by using mixed MEM and F-12 (50:50). I use a filter that can be used only once for 3 liter of media. But I don't want to filter a lot of media. If I filter 3 liter of each media, I will get 6 liter of media for cell culture!!! It is too much for doing my lab and I also worry about the contamination after it is filtered..

So I have a question that can I use the same filter with different media?

Thanks a lot.

Thidarat Wi

If you are going to be mixing the medium afterwards anyway, there shouldn't be a problem. Slight variations from the 50:50 ratio shouldn't matter.

Another way to look at this is: a filter costs about US$70. Your time per hour (if you are employed or on a scholarship) will be about $30/hour. If you use the filter and something goes wrong with the filtration - which is more expensive - your time (given that you will have made the medium, cultured cells, tried to work out the problem...etc) or the filter?

I can tell you now, the expensive component is your time, not the filter... don't sweat the cost of disposable things if they make you certain about the reagents you are using!

As an alternative, you can use syringe filters of 0.22 u in size. I am sure your lab must have plenty of those. They are cheaper. They cost around $2.5-3 for us. Try to find 50ml syringe in your lab.

Thank you so much for all sugestion.=)

I love these for small volumes

Millipore steriflips .22

Thidarat Wi on Fri Nov 2 16:36:01 2012 said:

Dear Thidarat,

You can buy pre-mixed DMEM/F12 media in both 100ml and 500ml volumes from Invitrogen. DMEM and MEM are slightly different I grant you BUT you can grow alot of cells in differing media's without losing viability, morphology or causing genetic shifting.

I have in the past asked them to do a "special" for me i.e. not a standard cell culture recipe. It may cost a few pounds more BUT they do all the normal QC/QA testing.....therefore this reduces any added variation to experimental results due to poor batch quality if you make it yourself.........and any contamination issues.

Disposable filters are just that and should only be used once and should never be used to filter other solutions after the original (I agree as usual with bob1)

Hope this is useful

Kindest regards

Uncle Rhombus