Abstract
Cultured mammalian cells are grown in medium containing carbohydrates, amino acids, salts, vitamins, and growth factors. In the 1950’s Eagle [1] identified the basic composition of tissue culture medium, except for the growth factors which were provided by added serum. Based on this work most culture media contain the essential amino acids required by humans [2] plus glutamine, tyrosine, and cystine. Depletion of any one of these amino acids results in cell death [1]. Eagle et al. [3] observed that the glutamine requirement of cells was 10- to 100-fold greater than for any other amino acid. The increased requirement for glutamine was related only marginally to the chemical instability of this amino acid since the daily spontaneous decomposition at 37° C amounted to only 2%–3% of the glutamine in the medium [4]. Although a portion of the glutamine is used for transamination reactions and direct incorporation into protein, we [4, 5] and other investigators [6–8] have proposed that glutamine is oxidized to CO2 to provide a significant portion of the energy requirement of cultured mammalian cells.
Keywords
- Tissue Culture Medium
- Ehrlich Ascites Tumor Cell
- Human Diploid Fibroblast
- Respiratory Substrate
- Glutamine Metabolism
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© 1984 Springer- Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Zielke, H.R., Sumbilla, C.M., Zielke, C.L., Tildon, J.T., Ozand, P.T. (1984). Glutamine Metabolism by Cultured Mammalian Cells. In: Häussinger, D., Sies, H. (eds) Glutamine Metabolism in Mammalian Tissues. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-69754-8_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-69754-8_16
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