From: Simões, I. N., Boura, J. S., dos Santos, F., Andrade, P. Z., Cardoso, C. M., Gimble, J. M., ... & Cabral, J. (2013). Human mesenchymal stem cells from the umbilical cord matrix: Successful isolation and ex vivo expansion using serum‐/xeno‐free culture media. Biotechnology journal, 8(4), 448-458.

In this study, the authors demonstrated the feasibility of isolating UCM-MSC by plastic adherence using serum-/xeno-free culture medium following enzymatic digestion of UCs, with a 100% success rate.

Cells were plated in T-flasks at an initial density of 10 000 cells/cm2 using Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM) supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS, MSC qualified) (n=2), StemPRO® MSC Serum-Free Medium (SFM) (n=2), or StemPRO® MSC SFM XenoFree (n=10) (all from Gibco) culture media and kept at 37ºC and 5% CO2 in a humidified atmosphere. When using StemPRO® MSC SFM/StemPRO® MSC SFM XenoFree cell culture, surfaces were pre-coated with CELLstartTM CTSTM (Invitrogen, Grand Island, NY, USA) following the manufacturer’s instructions.