CHANGES OF FREE AMINO-ACIDS IN MEDIA DURING CULTURE OF MOSQUITO CELLS

The utilization of free amino acids in culture media by two mosquito cell lines derived from Aedes aegypti (Peleg, 1969) and Culex molestus (Kitamura, 1970), were studied. Amino acids which showed a marked decrease with increasing period of culture were aspartic acid, cystine, and ornithine in both cell lines. Asparagine and glutamine decreased markedly in Culex cell culture, but only slightly in Aedes cell culture. In contrast isoleucine, leucine, proline, tyrosine and valine decreased more in the Aedes cell culture than in the Culex cell culture. Arginine, glycine, lysine, phenylalanine, serine, threonine and tryptophan did not change significantly in the culture media of either cell lines. α-Alanine increased markedly in the culture of both cell lines. Glutamic acid increased to some extent in the Culex cell culture, but not in the Aedes cell culture. β-Alanine and histidine increased slightly in the Aedes cell culture, whereas they remained almost unchanged in Culex cell culture. © 1978.