CELLnTEC’s precision media are designed to mimic specific micro environments in the body which play an important role in determining cell behavior. In this way our media are tailored to the particular requirements of either proliferative progenitors or fully differentiated cells. As a result CELLnTEC’s precision media deliver a host of benefits during the isolation, proliferation, and differentiation of epithelial cells.

PCT - Progenitor Cell Targeted

Progenitor Cell Targeted (PCT) media are designed to mimic the signaling environment of the stem cell niche more accurately than traditioinal media. As a result these media promote the establishment and retention of progenitor cells in vitro, and decrease their loss via differentiation in primary cell culture. Specific benefits include:

• Improved Isolation: by mimicking the in vivo progenitor cell micro-environment, PCT media establish more proliferative progenitor cells per isolation than traditional media.                             
• Progenitor Cell Enrichment: PCT media effectively retain progenitor cells in a proliferative state, resulting in more cells expressing desirable progenitor cell markers, without the need for a specific selection or cell sorting process.
• Improved Longevity: by mimicking the environment of the stem cell niche, PCT media are more effective at maintaining progenitors in a proliferative phenotype, resulting in fewer cells being lost to differentiation, and increased in vitro longevity of primary cell cultures.

Defined Cell Culture Media

Most of our media are available as fully defined versions, enabling exact control and knowledge of the factors influencing cell growth. For certain tissues we also provide media with a low concentration of BPE (Bovine Pituitary Extract), where the low amount of BPE was found to be beneficial in certain circumstances (for example for cell attachment or proliferation).

Differentiation

CELLnTEC's unique PCT media are specifically designed to retain cells in a highly proliferative phenotype and delay differentiation. Thus they are not well suited to situations where cells should be induced to differentiate. For this reason, CELLnTEC provides non-PCT versions of its media, which can be used when cells are induced to differentiate.

Differentiation in 2D: For more information, please click here.

Differentiation in 3D: For more information, please click here.

Product Overviews

For a complete overview of all our culture media, see our Media Selection Guide.

For primary and long-term cells, please click here.

High Isolation Efficiency: By specifically targeting progenitor cells and decreasing their loss to differentiation, Progenitor Cell Targeted (PCT) media offer high isolation efficiency and colony formation.
	Colony formation, epidermal keratinocytes, passage 1, two PCT media, one competitor.  CnT-57 (PCT, Low-BPE) delivers most colonies.	Colony forming efficiency (%) during the first 5 passages. CnT-57 (PCT Low-BPE) exhibits highest CFE during the first passages, CnT-07 (PCT Defined) increases significantly after P2.
High Expression of Progenitor cell Markers: PCT media efficiently target and support the growth of undifferentiated progenitor cells, and continue to enrich them over multiple passages
	FACS analysis of progenitor cell marker pair CD34/alpha-6 integrin in primary epidermal keratinocytes.  Expression begins at 6% (isolation), and increases to 68% after 3 passages in CnT-07 (PCT - Defined).
Late stage 2D Differentiation: Non-PCT media provide an ideal environment for the differentiation of epithelial cells. Confluent cells exposed to a differentiation trigger such as elevated calcium will continue to differentiated during at least 8 days, and upregulate the expression of a range of late-stage differentiation markers.
	Upregulation of differentiation markers in primary human epidermal keratinocytes (HPEK), cultured for 8 days in CnT-02 (Non-PCT) + Calcium.
Accurate 3D Differentiation: Non-PCT media may also be used for the establishment of accurate 3D models, which closely mimic the structures found in vivo.  Protocols for skin, bladder and airway epithelium can be found in the resources section of this website.
	3D epidermal model established using the 3D Starter Kit (Cat 3D-HPEK-50)