Feeder-free culture

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Some cells require the presence of feeder cells or contact with feeder cells to grow. Instead of feeder cells, certain cell types can be grown on culture surfaces coated with extracellular matrix proteins such as laminin, collagen, fibronectin or on Matrigel, which is a mixture of extracellular matrix components. Some cells may use cell culture medium conditioned by feeder cells.

Matrigel is an extracellular matrix product sold by Corning Life Sciences and Geltrex is a similar product sold by ThermoFisher Scientific. Feeder-free culture systems are being developed for clinical use to avoid patient exposure to animal pathogens.Clinical use of stem cells also aims for xeno-free culturing and since Matrigel and Geltrex are extracted from the sarcomas of Engelbreth-Holm-Swarm mice, they are not xeno-free and contain undefined components.