Trypsin, an animal-derived product, is the most commonly used enzyme for harvesting cells in culture. Trypsin is a pancreatic serine protease (proteolytic enzyme) with specificity for peptide bonds involving the carboxyl group of the two basic amino acids,arginine and lysine. Trypsin often contains a crude mixture of lipases, nucleases, polysaccharides, and proteases extracted from porcine pancreas.

Most cell cultures grow as a single-cell thick layer or a sheet attached to a substrate known as a monolayer. When subculturing adherent cells, these intercellular and cell-to-substrate links or connections must be gently dissociated. Proteolytic enzymes such as trypsin (i.e., a serine peptidase), break or gently separate these bonds by creating a single-cell suspension from which new subcultures are realized. Trypsin solutions are widely utilized as cell dissociation reagents for continuous cell culture of adherent growing cells. Trypsin proteolysis or trypsinization is a process in which proteins have been digested or treated with Trypsin and are thus said to be trypsinized. VivaCell’s Trypsin is designed not only to gently dissociate cells from almost any support substrates but also as well as from each other in order to actualize cell manipulation techniques in addition to other studies that require intact cell-surface proteins. Trypsin, as a solution, is available in a varied array of formulations with or without EDTA. EDTA is a chelator that binds calcium and magnesium ions that may otherwise inhibit the trypsin activity which then hydrolyzes and gains access to the intercellular bonds being cell-cell and/or cell-substrate bonds. Trypsin is often the subculturing agent of choice for cell dissociation/disaggregation of adherent cells although the treatment maybe cytotoxic if prolonged. Over-trypsinization is a common cause of subculture problems.

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