banter and General Discussion, page-10265

Natural? kidding right?

MSB rapidly expands its MSC product and is still using Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS) to culture their MSCs.

Plenty of literature which not only shows reduces efficiency but also MSC cell death due to population immunity and the presence of Bovine antibodies.

"FBS is a xenogeneic compound that may generate an immune reaction (Sundin et al., 2007). Even if MSCs are rinsed exhaustively, cells may internalise some FBS-compounds. Inflammatory reaction may occur after intra-articular (IA) administration of MSCs. This issue could be associated with xeno-contamination from the FBS, as the immune system may react against xeno-proteins internalised by MSCs (Sundin et al., 2007)."

"Preparation of MSCs with FBS resulted in post injection inflammation and antibody mediated cytotoxicity of MSCs when compared to MSCs prepared without FBS. Importantly, synovial MSC concentrations were reduced and LPS induced pain was higher, when FBS was used to prepare MSCs, demonstrating reduced efficacy of FBS prepared MSCs. Fetal bovine serum should no longer be utilized for MSC preparation in pre-clinical study or clinical study."


Not to mention the transfer of infectious agents and safety concerns

"Animal derived growth supplements, such as fetal bovine serum (FBS), have been predominantly used for MSC expansion in clinical protocols. However, utilization of animal derived products bears critical limitations and safety concerns18, such as animal derived (xeno) antigens and infectious agents present in FBS that might be transmitted to the recipient of MSC therapy19,20,21,22,23,24,25. Moreover, the precise composition of FBS remains unclear and often there are significant variations between lots"