Growth medium for the evaluation of antiestrogenic compounds in MCF-7 cell culture

The primary aim of the present study was to define a set of cell culture conditions that would be optimal for the evaluation of antiestrogens using estrogen dependent MCF-7 human breast cancer cells in culture. Therefore, the present study examined for the influence of media supplements which are known to alter the growth rate and estrogen receptor content of MCF-7 cells in culture. In this study, MCF-7 cell proliferation was evaluated using the hemocytometric trypan blue exclusion method. The results of this study clearly indicate that 1) charcoal-dextran stripped serum offers no advantage over low estradiol (less than 100 fM) calf serum which is available commercially, and 2) calf serum is as effective as fetal calf serum, in the presence or absence of insulin, in time-dependent growth of MCF-7 cells. Thus, growth media containing 5% non-stripped low estradiol (less than 100 fM) calf serum without insulin supplementation was found to be optimal for the evaluation of the antitumor activity of antiestrogenic compounds using MCF-7 cells in culture.