Albumin binding of fatty acids

[Kjellberg]

I would like to treat my cell line with different fatty acids. For this I first need to bind the fatty acids to albumin. I am "supposed" to use a molar ratio of fatty acid:albumin = 4:1.

I want to use a fatty acid concentration of 100 mM. How much BSA do I need to add to the medium before adding the fatty acid? BSA has a molecular weight of 66 kD, but how much is that in moles?

I'm probably just being stupid, but this really annoys me...

[relaxin]

If you use 100 mM fatty acid, you need an equal volume of 25 mM albumin to get a molar ratio of 4:1. For a 25 mM albumin solution, you will need 1.65 g/ml of albumin. But this assumes that you are using serum-free medium.

[Kjellberg]

Thanks a lot for the info!!

[berg]

make sure the albumin you use in the experiment is certified fatty acid free...else you might not get the results you are looking for.