doubling rate of MDA-MB-453 cells - (Aug/19/2006 )

Hi,

I am carrying some MDA-MB-453 cells. They seem to grow very slowly. I am using the medium recommended by ATCC: Leibovitz's L-15 medium with 2 mM L-glutamine, 10% FBS. Who can tell me the doubling time for this cell line? Any trick with growing these cells? I would really appreciate it!

Previously, I was culturing them in L-15 and they were growing really slow. I got a replacement from ATCC but it didn't help. Later, ATCC tech support recommended 20% FBS instead of 10%. Also, ATCC recommends centrifuging the supernatant and keeping the floating cells when you change the medium for any cell line. For some cell lines floating cells are dead and it is not a good idea to resuspend them in fresh medium and keep them. But these two suggestions worked very well for MDA-MB-453.

I was lucky, in our lab we were not able to keep a 0% CO2 incubator reserved for only a couple of cell lines, like MDA-MB-453. Now, I am culturing MDA-MB-453 cells in DMEM/F12 with 10% FBS and every 5-6 days I am able to subculture them. They definitely grow faster in DMEM/F12. ATCC keeps the cells in the original conditions and they are not willing to suggest you any modifications in the cell growth conditions. I think RPMI or DMEM/F12 may replace L-15 and help your cells to grow faster. Good luck.