Powdered Minimum Essential Medium (MEM)

RPMI-1640 is an improved McCoy’s 5A medium, and It has a unique effect compared to other media because it contains the reducing agent glutathione and a high concentration of vitamins. RPMI 1640 contains biotin, vitamin B12, and PABA, which are not found in Eagle’s MEM and DMEM. Additionally, the medium contains very high concentrations of the vitamins inositol and choline. RPMI 1640 medium has been found to be suitable for a variety of mammalian cells including HeLa cells, jurkat cells, MCF-7 cells, PC12 cells, PBMC cells, astrocytes and cancer cells, it is one of the most widely used media.RPMI 1640 medium does not contain proteins, lipids or growth factors. So it usually requires 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS) as supplementation.RPMI 1640 uses a sodium bicarbonate buffer system (2.0 g/L) and therefore requires an environment of 5-10% CO2 to maintain physiological pH. For a wide range of cell culture applications, we offer RPMI 1640 Modified Medium with various components and RPMI 1640 Medium with customizable components.

Ingredients of Powdered RPMI-1640 Medium

This RPMI-1640 dry powder medium needs to be supplemented with sodium bicarbonate, adjusted pH and filtered when preparing. The detailed formulation method is as follows:

1. Add 950 mL of distilled water to a mixing vessel as close to final volume as possible.
2. Add dry medium to room temperature (15°C to 30°C) water and stir gently. Do not heat water.
3. Rinse the inside of the pack to remove any residual powder.
4. Add 29.3 mL of 75 g/L NaHCO3 solution to the medium.
5. Adjust the pH to 0.2 to 0.3 units below the desired final working pH by slowly adding and stirring 1 N NaOH or 1 N HCl. The pH may rise by 0.1 to 0.3 units after filtration. The recommended working pH is 7.1-7.4.
6. Adjust final volume with distilled water.
7. Immediately process the medium through the membrane filtration function of a 0.2 μm filter into a sterile container using a positive pressure system.