2 replies to this topic

[BryanW]

Our lab has been using lots of growth factors/cytokines (from R&D Systems) to culture primary pancreatic cells such as HGF, VEGF, PDGF....However, due to budget restrain and R&D's prices are too costy not we can afford any more. Do anyone have other reliable, consistent high quality sources for these growth factors/cytokines?

[postdoc2130]

We purchase ours from Epoch Biolabs (epochbiolabs.com) and Peprotech (peprotech.com). Theirs are much cheaper, but sometimes Peprotech's products did not give us the cellular effect when used as positive controls (such as NF-kB reporter activation, ERK1/2, p38/JANK activation..). The problem is not our cells, passage number or media used (took us a while to figure it out). we think the problem is the activity is not high enough or the amount specified on the label is not correct.

Since then, we are continously using Epoch Biolabs' HGF, EGF, FGF.....so far so good and very consistent (for example, at 0.1 ng/mL of TNF on transfected THP-1 monocyte we can expect NF-kB reporter gene expression peak at 4-6 h). I recommend their products!

[joy_maf]

I have tried Epoch's VEGF on my endothelial cells and found that their factors are high affinity (based on competition binding assay) and high specificity/activity (V-CAM expression induction).