We’ve had questions recently about the type of Matrigel to use with the Allen Institute for Cell Science cell lines.
To our knowledge… without doing lot testing in your own lab, the “safest” bet would be to use an hESC qualified product (Corning cat#354277). If this product is too expensive for your lab, or you are interested in doing lot testing with hiPSCs that you already have grown and banked in LN2, we recommend testing a few lots of the Growth Factor-Reduced (GFR) Matrigel (Corning cat#354230). As we understand it, the “GFR” means that the growth factors have been quantified and found to be within a certain range by the manufacturer, so the standard of the GFR product (vs. non-GFR) is a little more tightly controlled. That being said, the hESC-qualified products aren’t stated as “GFR”- but that’s ok, because they’ve already been tested on hESCs, so the growth factors were empirically found to be within a good range.
We have found significant variation lot-to-lot with the GFR products, so if you go this route, please do ask Corning to lot test a few batches before you commit to a large purchase. If you’re interested in our lot testing protocol, please reach out to us at cells@alleninstitute.org