Total anti-oxidant capacity of cell culture media.

1. The composition of synthetic cell culture media is important for the behaviour of cultured cells in vitro and may affect the results of many in vitro experiments. The total anti-oxidant capacity (TAC) of an extracellular medium may be an important factor in cell redox homeostasis. 2. In the present study, the TAC of cell culture media used for the cultivation of mammalian, yeast and bacterial cells (RPMI1640, Iscove's modified Dulbecco's medium, Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium, minimum essential medium Eagle's 1959 with Earle's salts, Parker medium 199 with Hanks salts, bacterial Luria-Bertani medium, yeast extract-peptone-glucose and yeast nitrogen base media) was estimated using the 2,2'-azinobis(3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulphonic acid) (ABTS(.+)) decolourization assay and the ferric ion reducing anti-oxidant power assay. 3. We found that components of the media such as cysteine, tyrosine, tryptophan and Phenol Red are important contributors to the TAC of cell culture media.