Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 21, 2026
In Vitro Cultivation Techniques for Modeling Liver Organogenesis, Building Assembloids, and Designing Synthetic Tissues using Human Cell Lines
Published on: April 18, 2025
An investigation into the stability of commercial versus MG63-derived hepatocyte growth factor under flow cultivation
Giulia Meneghello1, Michael P Storm, Julian B Chaudhuri
1Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, Centre for Regenerative Medicine, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK.
Abstract:
The scale-up of tissue engineering cell culture must ensure that conditions are maintained while also being cost effective. Here we analyse the stability of hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) to investigate whether concentrations change under dynamic conditions, and compare commercial recombinant human HGF as an additive in 'standard medium', to HGF secreted by the osteosarcoma cell line MG63 as a 'preconditioned medium'. After 3 h under flow conditions, HGF in the standard medium degraded to 40% of its original concentration but HGF in the preconditioned medium remained at 100%. The concentration of secreted HGF was 10 times greater than the working concentration of commercially-available HGF. Thus HGF within this medium has increased stability; MG63-derived HGF should therefore be investigated as a cost-effective alternative to current lyophilised powders for use in in vitro models. Furthermore, we recommend that those intending to use HGF (or other growth factors) should consider similar stability testing before embarking on experiments with media flow.
