The Use of Tricine Buffer in Animal Tissue Cultures

The use of a nonvolatile buffer system is advantageous for pH control in animal cell cultures because it not only eliminates the necessity for a constant carbon dioxide environment but also facilitates the manipulations of cell populations during growth, maintenance, and experimentation without the concomitant fluctuations in pH of the medium . In 1966, Good et al . (1) described the preparation of several amine buffers intended for use in biological systems . Among those mentioned, Tricine, HEPES' and TES 2 all had pK values in the physiological range for tissue culture . Tricine (N-Tris (hydroxymethyl) methylglycine) has a pKa, of 7 .8 (37 ° ) and a ApKa / °C of -0.021 (1) ; is stable to autoclaving ; can be made up at 1 molar concentration as the sodium salt ; and is the most economical of the above mentioned buffers . It was, therefore, tested for its suitability in tissue culture media. While these studies were in progress, HEPES and TES were reported to be effective buffers for HeLa and several other cell lines (2) .