RPMI 1640 Medium with Phenol Red and L-Glutamine
RPMI 1640 Medium with Phenol Red and L-Glutamine is a ready-to-use liquid classical medium formulated without HEPES for research cell culture workflows. CCM-CM-0012 is supplied in a 500 mL format, contains 2.0 g/L D-glucose and 300 mg/L L-glutamine, and is intended for use after appropriate supplementation, commonly 10% fetal bovine serum. It is available from CellCultureMedia with free worldwide shipping for qualified procurement orders.
- ✓ Free worldwide shipping
- ✓ ISO-aligned manufacturing
- ✓ Certificate of Analysis on request
- ✓ Bulk & custom volumes quoted on request
Overview
CCM-CM-0012 is a sterile-filtered RPMI 1640 liquid medium for laboratories that require a defined, HEPES-free formulation with phenol red pH indicator and pre-added L-glutamine. The supplied medium is classified as animal-origin-free before user supplementation and is designed for routine cell culture in humidified incubators at 37 °C with 5–10% CO2. Phenol red supports visual monitoring of culture acidification, while 2.0 g/L D-glucose provides a standard carbon source for established RPMI 1640 workflows. The formulation is commonly paired with 10% fetal bovine serum, although final supplementation should be validated for each cell model and assay.
Key release specifications include pH 7.0–7.4, osmolality 260–305 mOsmol/kg, endotoxin ≤1 EU/mL, and sterility by filtration. This product is positioned in the classical media category for R&D, process development, and academic procurement teams that need consistent lot documentation and predictable ordering. The 500 mL bottle size supports small-batch experiments, method confirmation, and parallel culture evaluations without committing to larger-volume inventory.
Applications
- Maintenance and expansion of PBMC cultures and other suspension cell models that are routinely supported by RPMI 1640 chemistry.
- Culture of hematopoietic-derived research cell lines where a phenol-red-containing, L-glutamine-supplemented medium is specified by an internal protocol.
- Serum-containing assay development using user-added fetal bovine serum, growth supplements, or other qualified additives.
- CO2-buffered incubator workflows that do not require added HEPES and rely on bicarbonate buffering under controlled atmosphere conditions.
- Comparability studies, media screening, and procurement qualification for laboratories standardizing classical medium inputs across multiple teams.
Storage and Handling
Store CCM-CM-0012 at 2–8 °C and protect the bottle from light to preserve phenol red performance and overall formulation integrity. Do not freeze unless an internal stability protocol has been validated. The stated shelf life is 12 months when stored unopened under the recommended conditions. Handle using aseptic technique, inspect the bottle before use, and discard material that shows turbidity, leakage, visible particulates, or unexpected color shift. The product ships with blue ice to support refrigerated transit; upon receipt, transfer promptly to controlled cold storage and record the lot number for traceability.
Quality and Documentation
CellCultureMedia supplies CCM-CM-0012 under ISO-aligned quality practices with batch-level release review for sterility, endotoxin, pH, osmolality, appearance, and labeling accuracy. A Certificate of Analysis can be provided on request, and procurement teams may contact us through request a quote for volume pricing, standing orders, or documentation needs. Quality expectations, shipping controls, and documentation support are summarized on our quality page. Free worldwide shipping is available for this SKU, helping international research organizations simplify landed-cost planning while maintaining cold-chain handling expectations.
Specifications
Formulation Highlights
Contains (+)
Phenol red, 2.0 g/L D-glucose, 300 mg/L L-glutamine
Does Not Contain (-)
[-]HEPES
Storage & Handling
Storage: 2~8 ℃, protected from light. Shelf life: 12 months. Ship cold-chain where required.
Quality & Documentation
Manufactured under ISO-aligned quality management systems. Full documentation — Certificate of Analysis (CoA), Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS), formulation summary, and stability data — is available on request. Email [email protected] with the SKU.
About this product
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Learn more about this
- RPMI 1640 MediumRPMI 1640 is a basal cell culture medium developed at Roswell Park Memorial Institute in 1966 for the culture of human leukocytes in suspension. It contains 2,000 mg/L glucose (11.1 mM), 2,000 mg/L sodium bicarbonate (23.8 mM) buffered for a 5% CO2 atmosphere, unusually high phosphate (about 5.6 mM), low calcium (about 0.42 mM), and a distinctive component set that includes reduced glutathione, biotin, vitamin B12, para-aminobenzoic acid and hydroxyproline. It is the standard medium for lymphocytes, hybridomas, and most suspension-adapted haematopoietic and lymphoid cell lines, normally supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum.
- Phenol Red in Cell Culture MediaPhenol red (phenolsulfonphthalein) is a pH indicator added to cell culture media at roughly 5-15 mg/L, where it turns yellow below about pH 6.8 and pink to fuchsia above about pH 8.2, with the normal red-orange of healthy medium sitting near pH 7.4. Medium turning yellow means acidification - almost always lactate from cell metabolism, from an overgrown culture or from bacterial contamination - while medium turning pink or purple means the medium has gone alkaline, nearly always because CO2 has escaped from the bicarbonate buffer. Phenol red does no buffering itself and is purely diagnostic; use phenol-red-free medium for fluorescence and absorbance assays, and for oestrogen-responsive cell work, where the dye interferes with the readout.
- ACK lysis bufferACK (Ammonium-Chloride-Potassium) lysis buffer is an isotonic ammonium chloride solution used to remove red blood cells from leukocyte preparations such as mouse spleen, bone marrow and buffy coat. The standard composition is 150 mM ammonium chloride (8.02 g/L NH4Cl), 10 mM potassium bicarbonate (1.0 g/L KHCO3) and 0.1 mM disodium EDTA, adjusted to pH 7.2-7.4. Red cells lyse osmotically within one to five minutes at room temperature because their band 3 anion exchanger and high carbonic anhydrase activity drive ammonium chloride and water into the cell, while leukocytes, which lack that transport capacity, survive.
- Essential and Non-Essential Amino Acids in Cell CultureIn cell culture, an amino acid is called essential if cultured mammalian cells cannot make enough of it and it must be supplied in the medium - thirteen of them, the set Harry Eagle defined, including arginine, cystine, tyrosine and glutamine that are not classed as dietary essentials. The seven non-essential amino acids - glycine, alanine, asparagine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, proline and serine - can be synthesised by most cells, and are supplied anyway because making them consumes carbon, ATP and reducing equivalents that would otherwise go into growth. A MEM NEAA 100X supplement contains all seven at 10 mM, giving 0.1 mM of each at working strength; add it to MEM or DMEM, which contain few or none, and leave it out of Ham's F-12, IMDM and DMEM/F-12, which already carry all seven.
