Hanks′ Balanced Salts

Balanced salt solution (BSS) serves as an irrigating, transporting, and diluting fluid while maintaining intra- and extracellular osmotic balance. It also provides cells with water and certain bulk inorganic ions essential for normal cell metabolism. BSS when combined with a carbohydrate, such as glucose, provides the principal energy source for cell metabolism. In addition, it also provides a buffering system to maintain the medium within the physiological pH range (7.2-7.6).

Hanks′ Balanced Salts has been used:

• for diluting digested tissues during isolation of pancreatic blood vessels
• for washing mouse intestinal mucosal cells before lysis and sonication
• as an immersion solution to test the in vitro bioactivity of poly(ε-caprolactone)-coated hydroxyapatite scaffold derived from cuttlefish bone

Formulated to contain 9.7 grams of powder per liter of medium.

Supplement with 0.35 g/L sodium bicarbonate.

The pH is adjusted after addition of sodium bicarbonate. Investigators who work with stem cells or cell clones frequently prefer media without phenol red.