FluxMPS™ Basal Medium Eagle (BME) Family
Select BasalMediumEagle(BME)
- see the table below
Ships within 48 hours for in-stock items. Backordered items ship within 1–2 weeks.
FluxMPS™ Basal Medium Eagle (BME) Family
Diagnocine’s FluxMPS™ Basal Medium Eagle (BME) family is a 1X liquid product line built on Harry Eagle’s original 27-nutrient design[1,6]. The foundational chemically defined medium is the basis for MEM and DMEM. Each of the four variants covers a distinct buffering and supplement combination (Glutamine, Sodium Bicarbonate, 25 mM HEPES, Phenol Red), giving researchers a single product family that maps cleanly to monolayer diploid culture, primary mammalian cells, established lines such as HeLa, L929, WI-38, and MRC-5, and modern microphysiological system (MPS), organ-on-a-chip (OoC), tissue-chip, and lab-on-a-chip (LoC) workflows.
- Four ready-to-use 1X liquid variants — DCP-BME1X, DCP-BME-B1X, DCP-BMEH1X, DCP-BMEH-B1X — differing only in Sodium Bicarbonate and 25 mM HEPES supplementation; all four contain L-Glutamine and Phenol Red.
- Built on Eagle’s 27 essential nutrients: 13 essential amino acids at minimal (baseline) concentrations, 9 water-soluble vitamins (including Biotin), and Earle’s Balanced Salt Solution as the salt base.[1,6]
- Standard Glucose at 1.0 g/L (~5.5 mM) is near-physiological, the same level later inherited by MEM and used as the low-glucose baseline of DMEM.[1,5,6]
- HEPES variants supply a fixed 25 mM HEPES standard concentration for tightly buffered, CO2-independent pH stability during open-air manipulation, perfusion priming, and live-cell imaging.
- Engineered with Diagnocine’s 0.04 micron filtration architecture, finer than any conventional ready-to-use cell culture media currently available, to remove the microscopic particulates and protein aggregates that silently block micro-channels, disrupt laminar flow, and generate false biological signals in MPS / OoC platforms.
- Validated for monolayer diploid culture, primary mammalian fibroblasts, and human transformed lines, including WI-38 and MRC-5; the same minimal-concentration design that makes BME the medium of choice for 13C / 15N isotope-labeling and metabolic tracing studies.[1,6]
- Ships in 500 mL and 1000 mL bottles. Stored at 2–8 °C away from bright light. Custom pH, glucose concentration, salts, HEPES level, and added supplements available on request — please contact support@diagnocine.com.
- Concentration1X (standard)
- Glucose1.0 g/L
- L-Glutamine0.292 g/L
- Soduium BicarbonateConfigurable (+/-)
- 25mM HEPESConfigurable (+/-)
- Phenol Red0.011 g/L
- Salt baseEarle’s Balanced Salt Solution
- BufferingCO2-dependent, Bicarbonate, and/or 25 mM HEPES
- Sterility0.04 µm filtered
- Sizes500 mL, 1000 mL
- Storage2–8 °C, away from bright light
Choose your BME formulation
All four FluxMPS™ BME variants share the same Eagle 27-nutrient core, Earle’s salts base, 1.0 g/L glucose, L-Glutamine, and Phenol Red indicator, and differ only in Sodium Bicarbonate and 25 mM HEPES supplementation. Check the supplement(s) you need below and press Search to highlight every matching variant. Each row links to its product page either by clickling the catalog number or the View button.
| Display name | Catalog No. | L-Glutamine | Bicarbonate | HEPES | Phenol Red | Product Page |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BME | DCP-BME1X | check | check | remove | check | Viewarrow_forward |
| BME w/o Na Bicarbonate | DCP-BME-B1X | check | remove | remove | check | Viewarrow_forward |
| BME + HEPES | DCP-BMEH1X | check | check | check | check | Viewarrow_forward |
| BME + HEPES w/o Na Bicarbonate | DCP-BMEH-B1X | check | remove | check | check | Viewarrow_forward |
About Basal Medium Eagle
Basal Medium Eagle (BME) is a fundamental synthetic cell culture medium widely used for supporting the growth of various mammalian cells. Developed by Harry Eagle, it was originally designed to support the growth of HeLa cells and mouse fibroblasts. BME contains essential components for cell growth, including nine B vitamins and thirteen essential amino acids. It is considered the simplest of the basal media, providing all necessary elements for cell growth. BME is typically formulated with Earle’s salts and sodium bicarbonate, so it is usually used in a 5–10% CO2 environment to maintain physiological pH.
BME is principally used for monolayer diploid cell cultures, primary cell cultures, and supporting cell lines such as HeLa and L929 mouse fibroblasts. It is particularly effective for primary mammalian fibroblasts and human transformed cell lines like WI-38 and MRC-5. BME has served as the foundation for several modified media formulations, including Minimal Essential Medium and Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle’s Medium. It is important to note that BME does not contain proteins, lipids, or growth factors. As a result, it often requires supplementation, typically with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS), to support optimal cell growth.[1,6]
Origins and Development
Harry Eagle at the National Institutes of Health published a series of systematic studies in 1955 that defined, for the first time, the precise nutritional requirements of two cell lines: HeLa (human carcinoma) and L929 (mouse fibroblast). His three 1955 papers established the specific amino acid and vitamin requirements for each line individually,[2,3] and his summary paper in Science (122:501–504) then reported BME, a single consolidated medium containing the 27 essential nutrients he had identified, formulated at concentrations optimized for the growth of HeLa cells.[1,6]
Eagle himself noted that “the initial objective of these studies was the identification of the specific metabolites required for the growth of various cell types rather than the development of a chemically defined medium”, meaning BME was a byproduct of nutritional science, not an engineering goal. He also observed from the outset that BME “did not permit growth unless a small amount of serum protein was added,” acknowledging that the function of the serum component remained unclear at the time.[1,6]
The BME family tree
In 1959, Eagle published Amino Acid Metabolism in Mammalian Cell Cultures (Science, 130:432–437), describing Minimum Essential Medium (MEM), a BME derivative with increased amino acid concentrations intended to “permit the cultures to be kept for somewhat longer periods without refeeding” and to promote growth across a wider range of cell lines.[4,6] That same year, Renato Dulbecco and G. Freeman communicated, via footnote in a Virology paper (8:396–397) on polyoma virus plaque production, another BME derivative now known as DMEM, which contained even greater amino acid and vitamin concentrations and was used to support mouse embryonic cell culture.[5,6] Less than a decade later, Moore and colleagues (1967) described RPMI 1640, developed from McCoy’s 5A Medium (itself partly derived from BME), to support the growth of human blood cells.[6]
The result is a single design lineage: virtually every modern basal medium in widespread use today — MEM, DMEM, RPMI 1640 — can be traced directly back to Eagle’s original BME formulation.[6] That lineage is exactly why BME remains the reference baseline for any controlled comparison of medium composition, especially in the emerging field of physiologic media design.[6,7]
BME composition
BME is built around the 27 essential nutrients Eagle identified across his 1955 studies of HeLa and L929 cells. The summary below preserves the categorical structure of the formulation as documented in the primary literature; specific per-component mg/L values are provided on each individual variant’s product page (linked above) and on the variant-specific Certificate of Analysis (CoA), available on request from support@diagnocine.com.
| Component | BME details |
|---|---|
| Total essential nutrients | 27 components identified by Eagle and encoded in the formulation[1,6] |
| Amino acids | 13 essential amino acids at minimal (baseline) concentrations |
| Vitamins | 9 water-soluble vitamins; includes Biotin (later dropped from MEM derivatives) |
| Inorganic salts | Earle’s Balanced Salt Solution base |
| Glucose | 1.0 g/L (~5.5 mM) — near-physiological level[1,6] |
| Serum requirement | Always requires 5–10% serum supplementation; BME alone is insufficient for proliferation[1,6] |
| pH buffering | Bicarbonate-based, CO2-dependent system (5–10% CO2 for “BME” and “BME + HEPES” variants); HEPES variants add 25 mM HEPES for dual-buffer or CO2-independent operation[1,6] |
BME vs MEM vs DMEM
The table below summarizes the documented compositional and historical differences between BME and the two principal media derived from it.[1,4,5,6]
| Feature | BME (FluxMPS™ family) | MEM | DMEM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amino acid level | Baseline — minimal[6] | ~2× BME[6] | ~4× BME[6] |
| Vitamin level | Baseline, includes Biotin | Often lacks Biotin | 4× BME[6] |
| Glucose | 1.0 g/L | 1.0 g/L | Up to 4.5 g/L[6] |
| Serum supplement | 5–10% recommended[6] | 5–10% recommended[6] | 10–20% typical[6] |
| Developer & year | Harry Eagle, 1955[1,6] | Harry Eagle, 1959[4,6] | Dulbecco & Freeman, 1959[5,6] |
Built for the architecture of the future. Not the flask of the past.
Traditional cell culture media were formulated for static well plates and flasks — environments that tolerate impurities, precipitates, and particle loads that would immediately compromise a microfluidic system. FluxMPS™ was designed from the ground up for Organ-on-Chip (OoC), Tissue-on-Chip (ToC), and Lab-on-Chip (LoC) platforms, where the medium itself is part of the instrument.
Purity that protects your platform
FluxMPS™ is purified to 0.04 microns, finer than any ready-to-use cell culture media currently available. Microscopic particulates and protein aggregates that silently block micro-channels, disrupt laminar flow, and generate false biological signals are eliminated before the medium ever reaches your chip.
Engineered for flow, not just growth
Every component is optimized for consistent, laminar-flow performance across complex micro-channel geometries, capillary-bed and vascular simulations, and long-term automated perfusion studies running continuously for weeks. Zero-clogging is the baseline specification, not a feature.
Optical clarity for live imaging
The same ultra-low particulate matrix that protects channels also gives clean optical paths for confocal microscopy, real-time imaging, and integrated biosensing on chip — your biology drives the result, not your medium.
Clean matrix for metabolic tracing
Because BME provides nutrients at the lowest defined concentrations, it is the medium of choice for isotope-labeling experiments (e.g., 13C or 15N amino acid tracing) where excess unlabeled nutrient would dilute isotopic signal and obscure results.[6]
The reference baseline
The 2019 Cantor review (Trends Cell Biol., 29:854–861) directly uses BME / MEM as the baseline comparator when demonstrating that traditional media poorly reflect human plasma metabolite composition, making BME the reference point for the emerging field of physiologic media design.[6]
Customization on demand
1X is the standard concentration; 1.0 g/L is the standard glucose; 25 mM is the standard HEPES. Custom pH, glucose, salts, HEPES level, and added supplements are available on request — contact support@diagnocine.com.
Quadruple-stage filtration system
Every FluxMPS™ BME variant is delivered through Diagnocine’s Quadruple-stage filtration architecture — two pre-filtration passes followed by two sterile-filtration passes, with the final polish at 0.04 µm, finer than any conventional ready-to-use cell culture medium currently available. The goal is a microchannel-safe matrix that does not introduce particulates, aggregates, or other impurities into the instrument.
-
01
Pre-Filtration Stage 1 0.1 µm
Initial coarse particulate removal.
-
02
Pre-Filtration Stage 2 0.1 µm
Secondary particulate and aggregate reduction.
-
03
Sterile Filtration Stage 1 0.04 µm
Fine sterile filtration below standard 0.22 micron practice.
-
04
Sterile Filtration Stage 2 0.04 µm
Final polish for microfluidic-grade clarity.
Why a 4-stage architecture for BME?
BME is a low-protein matrix with a small particulate budget, which makes it especially well-suited to deep ultra-filtration: there is no co-formulated serum to clog the membrane and no growth-factor protein to denature on a fine filter. The same minimal-concentration design that makes BME a clean baseline for metabolic tracing also makes it an ideal substrate for ultra-fine purification, so the medium that arrives at your chip is as defined as the formulation itself.
© Diagnocine® — BME family (DCP-BME1X, DCP-BME-B1X, DCP-BMEH1X, DCP-BMEH-B1X)
Validated cell lines & application areas
BME’s use has been validated across the cell types and application areas below. Specific buffering and HEPES requirements determine which BME family variant fits each workflow — see the Product Family Selector above.[1,6,7]
HeLa cells
Eagle’s original model; used to define and calibrate the 27 essential nutrient set.[1,2,6]
L929 mouse fibroblasts
Used in parallel with HeLa to demonstrate that nutritional requirements are broadly conserved across species.[1,3,6]
Human diploid fibroblasts
WI-38 and MRC-5, used for vaccine production and cellular aging studies; BME supports stable normal karyotype maintenance.
Primary mammalian cultures
BME’s minimal formulation makes it a suitable starting medium for cells isolated directly from tissue, including primary mammalian fibroblasts.
Microphysiological systems
Stable shear stress and no channel blockage on Organ-on-Chip, Tissue-on-Chip, and Lab-on-Chip platforms; optical clarity for real-time imaging and integrated biosensing.
Continuous perfusion studies
Consistent formulation stability over weeks of continuous flow in capillary-bed and vascular-mimic perfusion devices; the HEPES variants (DCP-BMEH1X, DCP-BMEH-B1X) are typically chosen here for tighter pH control during perfusion priming.
Scientific applications for the BME baseline
The same low, defined nutrient set that made BME a teaching tool for cellular nutrition also makes it the right starting matrix for any experiment in which nutrient excess would obscure the biology of interest.
Metabolic tracing
Because BME provides nutrients at the lowest defined concentrations, it is the medium of choice for isotope-labeling experiments (e.g., 13C or 15N amino acid tracing) where excess unlabeled nutrient would dilute isotopic signal and obscure results.[6]
Physiologic-comparison studies
The 2019 Cantor review (Trends Cell Biol., 29:854–861) directly uses BME / MEM as the baseline comparator when demonstrating that traditional media poorly reflect human plasma metabolite composition, making BME the reference point for the emerging field of physiologic media design.[6]
Diploid cell maintenance
BME’s low-nutrient environment supports long-term maintenance of human diploid fibroblasts (WI-38, MRC-5) without inducing the metabolic overstimulation that can accompany richer media.
Regulatory foundation
FluxMPS™ is formulated to support FDA-recognized physiological modeling standards, providing a validated, reproducible media foundation for drug discovery, toxicology screening, and translational research. When your downstream data needs to stand up to regulatory scrutiny, your upstream media cannot be an afterthought.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about the FluxMPS™ Basal Medium Eagle (BME) family. For variant-specific Certificates of Analysis or formulation questions not covered here, contact support@diagnocine.com.
All four variants share the Eagle 27-nutrient core and 1.0 g/L glucose, so the choice is driven by buffering, not by biology:
- DCP-BME1X (BME) — the classic bicarbonate-buffered baseline. Pick this for standard 5–10% CO2 incubator culture of HeLa, L929, primary cells, and human diploid lines.
- DCP-BME-B1X (BME w/o Sodium Bicarbonate) — pick this when you need to titrate NaHCO3 yourself or substitute a different buffer system as part of in-house formulation work.
- DCP-BMEH1X (BME + HEPES) — dual-buffered (bicarbonate + 25 mM HEPES). Pick this for protocols that require pH stability during extended bench manipulation, microscope-stage imaging, or perfusion priming, while still running in a CO2 incubator the rest of the time.
- DCP-BMEH-B1X (BME + HEPES w/o Sodium Bicarbonate) — HEPES-only buffering. Pick this for CO2-independent applications such as on-stage imaging without humidified CO2 or ambient-air microfluidic perfusion.
Yes. FluxMPS™ media are engineered specifically for OoC, ToC, and LoC platforms. Every component is optimized for consistent, laminar-flow performance across complex micro-channel geometries, capillary-bed and vascular simulations, and long-term automated perfusion studies. The 0.04 µm final filtration removes the microscopic particulates and protein aggregates that block micro-channels in conventional 0.22 µm media. For perfusion or on-stage imaging where CO2 is not always available, choose one of the HEPES variants (DCP-BMEH1X or DCP-BMEH-B1X).
BME does not contain proteins, lipids, or growth factors and was acknowledged by Eagle from the outset to require a small amount of serum protein for proliferation.[1,6] Typical use is 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS); the Eagle / Cantor literature documents 5–10% as the recommended range.[6] The exact serum lot and percentage should be matched to the target cell line and experimental endpoint.
BME provides nutrients at the lowest defined concentrations of any commonly used basal medium — 13 essential amino acids at minimal levels, 9 vitamins at minimal levels, and 1.0 g/L (~5.5 mM) glucose. In an isotope-labeling experiment, every unlabeled molecule of an amino acid or substrate already present in the medium dilutes the labeled tracer signal. Because BME has the smallest unlabeled background of any Eagle-derived medium, it preserves isotopic enrichment and produces cleaner tracer data.[6]
The bicarbonate-buffered variants (DCP-BME1X and DCP-BMEH1X) require a 5–10% CO2 environment to maintain physiological pH, because Earle’s salts use a bicarbonate / CO2 equilibrium for buffering. The HEPES-only variant (DCP-BMEH-B1X), which contains 25 mM HEPES with no sodium bicarbonate, is intended for CO2-independent use such as ambient-air imaging or perfusion. The DCP-BME-B1X variant has neither bicarbonate nor HEPES and is designed for users who supply their own buffering chemistry.
Yes. 1X is the standard concentration, 1.0 g/L is the standard glucose concentration, and 25 mM is the standard HEPES concentration. Custom pH, glucose level, salts, HEPES level, and additions of chemicals, compounds, proteins, or supplements are all available on request. Contact support@diagnocine.com with your formulation requirements and we will return a custom configuration quote.
All four FluxMPS™ BME variants ship in 500 mL and 1000 mL bottles. Recommended storage is 2–8 °C, away from bright light. The label-stated shelf life is variant- and lot-specific — refer to the Certificate of Analysis (CoA) for each lot, available on request from support@diagnocine.com.
Verified bibliography
All references below are taken directly from the source description for the BME family and link to the original peer-reviewed publication or its PMC / PubMed record.
- Eagle, H. (1955). Nutrition Needs of Mammalian Cells in Tissue Culture. Science, 122(3168), 501–504. PMID: 13255879 — Original BME definition and the 27-nutrient formulation.
- Eagle, H. (1955). The specific amino acid requirements of a human carcinoma cell (strain HeLa) in tissue culture. J. Exp. Med., 102, 37–48. — Pre-BME foundational amino acid study.
- Eagle, H. (1955). The minimum vitamin requirements of the L and HeLa cells in tissue culture. J. Exp. Med., 102, 595–600. — Pre-BME foundational vitamin study.
- Eagle, H. (1959). Amino Acid Metabolism in Mammalian Cell Cultures. Science, 130(3373), 432–437. PMID: 13658943 — Describes the transition from BME to MEM.
- Dulbecco, R. & Freeman, G. (1959). Plaque production by the polyoma virus. Virology, 8, 396–397. — Origin of DMEM as a BME derivative.
- Cantor, J. R. (2019). The Rise of Physiologic Media. Trends in Cell Biology, 29(11), 854–861. PMC7001851 — Authoritative historical and scientific context for BME and its descendants.
- Yao, T. & Asayama, Y. (2017). Animal-cell culture media: History, characteristics, and current issues. Reproductive Medicine and Biology, 16(2), 99–117. PMC5661806 — Comprehensive evolution review from BME to serum-free systems.
FluxMPS™ — Precision Cell Culture Media for Microphysiological Systems
Built for the architecture of the future. Not the flask of the past.
Traditional cell culture media were formulated for static well plates and flasks — environments that tolerate impurities, precipitates, and particle loads that would immediately compromise a microfluidic system. FluxMPS™ was designed from the ground up for Organ-on-Chip (OoC), Tissue-on-Chip (ToC), and Lab-on-Chip (LoC) platforms, where the medium itself is part of the instrument.
Purity That Protects Your Platform
FluxMPS™ is purified to 0.04 microns — finer than any ready-to-use cell culture media currently available. At this level, the microscopic particulates and protein aggregates that silently block micro-channels, disrupt laminar flow, and generate false biological signals are eliminated before the media ever reaches your chip.
The result: your platform stays operational, your data stays clean, and your biology drives the result — not your media.
Engineered for Flow, Not Just Growth
The name FluxMPS™ reflects its core design principle. Every component is optimized for consistent, laminar flow performance across:
- Complex micro-channel geometries
- Capillary-bed and vascular simulations
- Long-term automated perfusion studies running continuously for weeks
Zero-clogging performance is not a feature — it is the baseline specification.
Applications & Performance
| Application | What FluxMPS™ Delivers |
|---|---|
| Microfluidics | Stable shear stress; no channel blockage |
| Metabolic Tracing | Ultra-pure matrix with no contaminant interference |
| Long-term Perfusion | Consistent formulation stability over weeks of continuous flow |
| Organ-on-Chip | Optical clarity for real-time imaging and integrated biosensing |
Regulatory Foundation
FluxMPS™ is formulated to support FDA-recognized physiological modeling standards, providing a validated, reproducible media foundation for drug discovery, toxicology screening, and translational research. When your downstream data needs to stand up to regulatory scrutiny, your upstream media cannot be an afterthought.
The Bottom Line
Microfluidic platforms are precision instruments. They require precision inputs.
FluxMPS™ is the only ready-to-use cell culture medium engineered specifically to meet that standard — protecting your chip, your cells, and your science.
