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Oxygen and mammalian cell culture: are we repeating the experiment of Dr. Ox?

Nature Metabolism volume 1, pages 858–860 (2019)Cite this article

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Mammalian cell culture represents a cornerstone of modern biomedical research. There is growing appreciation that the media conditions in which cells are cultured can profoundly influence the observed biology and reproducibility. Here, we consider a key but often ignored variable, oxygen, and review why being mindful of this environmental parameter is so important in the design and interpretation of cell culture studies.

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Fig. 1: Oxygen tensions vary widely across tissues but are significantly lower than those in standard culturing conditions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Tslil Ast & Vamsi K. Mootha

  2. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Tslil Ast & Vamsi K. Mootha

  3. Department of Molecular Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Tslil Ast & Vamsi K. Mootha

  4. Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Tslil Ast & Vamsi K. Mootha

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  1. Tslil Ast
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  2. Vamsi K. Mootha
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Correspondence to Vamsi K. Mootha.

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Competing interests

V.K.M. is on the scientific advisory boards of Raze Therapeutics, Janssen Pharmaceuticals and 5AM Ventures, and is listed as an inventor on patents filed by Massachusetts General Hospital on the use of hypoxia as a therapy.

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Ast, T., Mootha, V.K. Oxygen and mammalian cell culture: are we repeating the experiment of Dr. Ox?. Nat Metab 1, 858–860 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-019-0105-0

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