The Cell Culture Medium Affects Growth, Phenotype Expression and the Response to Selenium Cytotoxicity in A549 and HepG2 Cells

Selenium compounds influence cell growth and are highly interesting candidate compounds for cancer chemotherapy. Over decades an extensive number of publications have reported highly efficient growth inhibitory effects with a number of suggested mechanisms f especially for redox-active selenium compounds. However, the studies are difficult to compare due to a high degree of variations in half-maximal inhibitor concentration (IC(50)) dependent on cultivation conditions and methods to assess cell viability. Among other factors, the variability in culture conditions may affect the experimental outcome. To address this, we have compared the maintenance effects of four commonly used cell culture media on two cell lines, A549 and HepG2, evaluated by the toxic response to selenite and seleno-methylselenocysteine, cell growth and redox homeostasis. We found that the composition of the cell culture media greatly affected cell growth and sensitivity to selenium cytotoxicity. We also provided evidence for change of phenotype in A549 cells when maintained under different culture conditions, demonstrated by changes in cytokeratin 18 (CK18) and vimentin expression. In conclusion, our results have shown the importance of defining the cell culture medium used when comparing results from different studies.