Plant protein hydrolysates as a supplement for medium of human skin fibroblast 1184 cell culture

Abstract

Medium is the most important item in cell culture. Each medium consists of two main parts which are a basal medium and serum. The main source of the serum is come from an animal blood. The serum from animal blood has many disadvantages such as viral contaminations. Moreover, serum is very expensive. Serum-free media is the best alternative in solving this problem. Unfortunately, serum-free medium is not sufficient for the cell growth. Thus, some supplements must be added to serum-free medium. One of the most important sources of supplements is from plants which could reduce the cost. In this study different plant protein hydrolysates from soy, sesame, Aloe vera, rice and wheat have been tested against Human Skin Fibroblast (HSF) 1184. All protein hydrolysates were prepared through enzymatic hydrolysis using commercial enzymes of non-animal origin. These hydrolysates were characterized according to their solubility and peptide size. Different growth behaviours of HSF 1184 cells were observed when these hydrolysates were added in DMEM with and without Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS). Hydrolysates from exopeptidase enzymes such as Flavourzyme gave negative effect on HSF 1184 cell culture, while hydrolysates from endopeptidase enzymes were supplementary for HSF 1184 cell culture. Since plant proteins do not have all the necessary amino acids for HSF 1184 cell culture growth, they cannot be solely substituted with FBS. Depending on the enzyme used, the supplementation with hydrolysates corresponding to a high degree of hydrolysis and composition of peptides with small molecular size, led to different maximal cell density. This indicates the importance of enzyme specificity and consequently the nature of the released peptides. In conclusion, the best plant protein hydrolysates for supplementation into the complete medium for HSF 1184 growth were soy and Aloe vera which were hydrolysed by Alcalase.