Roswell Park Memorial Institute medium
RPMI-1640 is a cell culture medium for normal and neoplastic leukocytes and other human and animal cell types. The formulation was the mid-1960s by GE Moore and colleagues at Roswell Park Memorial Institute, RPMI therefore, developed.
Like almost all commonly used today cell culture media used RPMI -1640 a bicarbonate buffer system and is based on a solution of glucose, salts, amino acids and vitamins. As an indicator of the pH remains still phenol added.
For cultivation of most cell types, the media must be supplemented with additional components, often with serum, which, inter alia, growth factors, trace elements and hormones such as insulin supplies the cells.
Together with other cell culture media, which were developed in the period between 1950 and 1970 (eg, DMEM and Ham's F12) is RPMI -1640 a typical example of a chemically defined cell culture medium, which was widely spread since then and until today ( almost) is used unchanged recipe, although the knowledge now have multiplied over the cellular metabolism.