sodium bicarbonate in DMEM - USING DMEM WITH OR WITHOUT SODIUM BICARBONATE (Aug/28/2006 )

i am using a DMEM media with sodium bicarbonate and my Chinese hamster cells are growing very well. I don't exactly know what is the function of sodium bicarbonate in the media. is it anything to do with CO2 concentration? We keep the cells in a CO2 incubator so a 5% CO2 is in the incubator environment. with this condition can i use a DMEM without sodium bicarbonate?

thanks so much ,
Aby

sodium bicarbonate helps to buffer the media and maintain its pH. Most cell culture media also contain HEPES which is a buffering agent as well, so if carbonate is absent, HEPES should b able to maintain the pH but i havent checked if it works or not.

If ur cells grow well in media with sodium carbonate, stick with it.

hi
i use dmem withou bicarbonate and with HEPES for some suspension cell culture and it was in 5%CO2 incubator
Bicarbonate is in relation with CO2 for bufffering the medium