Defined Media for Human Smooth Muscle Cultures

We are a commercial supplier of human cell culture products for research and toxicity testing.Current products include smooth muscle cells of arterial, venous, and bronchial origin, as well as aserum-supplemented medium for their growth. Our research will develop a chemically-defined serum-freemedium for these cells. The amount of serum supplementation required will be minimal levels byoptimization of the nutrient medium. The residual requirements for serum proteins will then be replacedwith hormones, growth factors, attachment factors, carrier proteins and supplemental nutrients asneeded for optimal growth in a defined medium. Proliferation of smooth muscle cells at inappropriatelocations within the lumens of arteries plays a major role in the pathology of atherosclerosis. Recentresearch has shown that highly diverse chemical signals arising from several other cell types in responseto dietary factors and minor vascular injury interact in complex ways to influence that growth. Theavailability of a highly-defined commercially-produced medium will greatly facilitate analysis of responseshuman vascular smooth muscle cells to the large numbers of different signaling molecules that arecurrently believed to exert regulatory effects on their proliferation. Because bronchial smooth musclecells grow well in the serum-supplemented medium for vascular smooth muscle cells, we anticipate thatthey will also grow well in the defined medium that is to be developed, with no more than minormodifications in the formulation.