Need BSA in Starvation Media? - (Feb/07/2007 )

Hi Everyone,
I do a serum starvation for 16 hours. I have been using DMEM + 1%BSA + antibiotic. I have been observing increased phosphorylation in the protein I have been studing (which has been shown to be activated by albumin in another cell line). I was wondering if it is possible to serum starve without the addition of BSA...I know this is a long shot as far as determining what is going 'wrong' with my experiment...but just curious if I could even consider starving them without BSA.

I always do starvation without BSA. It's known that BSA can form complexes with several kind of molecules, including bioactive phospholipids -among others- which can activate many cell signals. If BSA in not enough pure, maybe that phosphorylation in your protein could be because BSA or a BSA-binded thing. I'd do the experiment without BSA. Maybe it should be a control for your activation experiment.

Good luck!