Oxygenation in cell culture: Critical parameters for reproducibility are routinely not reported

PLoS One. 2018 Oct 16;13(10):e0204269. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0204269. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

Mammalian cell culture is foundational to biomedical research, and the reproducibility of research findings across the sciences is drawing increasing attention. While many components contribute to reproducibility, the reporting of factors that impact oxygen delivery in the general biomedical literature has the potential for both significant impact, and immediate improvement. The relationship between the oxygen consumption rate of cells and the diffusive delivery of oxygen through the overlying medium layer means parameters such as medium depth and cell type can cause significant differences in oxygenation for cultures nominally maintained under the same conditions. While oxygenation levels are widely understood to significantly impact the phenotype of cultured cells in the abstract, in practise the importance of the above parameters does not appear to be well recognized in the non-specialist research community. On analyzing two hundred articles from high-impact journals we find a large majority missing at least one key piece of information necessary to ensure consistency in replication. We propose that explicitly reporting these values should be a requirement for publication.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Cell Culture Techniques / methods*
  • Cells, Cultured
  • Humans
  • Mammals
  • Oxygen / metabolism*
  • Phenotype
  • Research Design

Substances

  • Oxygen

Grants and funding

Funding was provided by: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/) RGPIN-201404874 (MU), and PhD studentship (DK); Canadian Institutes of Health Research (http://cihr-irsc.gc.ca/) MOP-137095 (MU); Alberta Diabetes Institute (https://www.ualberta.ca/alberta-diabetes/) Graduate Studentship (YY); Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute (https://research4kids.ucalgary.ca/) Graduate Studentship (AA), and Post Doctoral Fellowship (DT). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.