A Serum-Free in vitro Culture System for Crayfish Organs

Abstract

Midgut gland and hypodermis of the crayfish Astacus leptodactylus have been cultured in a serum-free medium for several days. The medium consists of 1 part of van Harreveld solution and 1 part of an amino acid mixture supplemented with 1.2 mᴍ Na2HP04, 12 mᴍ Hepes and 80 mᴍ glucose. The antibiotics penicillin (15 mg/l) and streptomycin (25 mg/1) were added for long term culturing. This medium, called TG medium, allows the maintainance of the tissues for more than 100 h without any loss of their viability with respect to protein synthesis and secretion.

Long-term culture of integumental explants from premolt blue crabs,Callinectes sapidus

“…Attempts to culture integument have been limited to 24 h for Balanus amphitrite (4)(5)(6), 4 days for Astacus leptodactylus (2,7), and 10 days for Gecarcinus lateralis (8). Mayo and Skinner (8), utilizing integument from a postmolt animal, incubated the isolated tissue in Eagle's minimal essential medium (MEM), 5% fetal bovine serum (FBS), and 20% crab serum from postmoh II.…”