Mineral oil or liquid petroleum is used for conservation of various types of cutltures. The advantages of using mineral oil are that the growth rate is decreased and the evaporation of water from the medium is almost completely eliminated. Thus, sub-culturing is reduced leading to increase in the viability of the culture. The first time mineral oil was used was in 1914, and it was used to overlay bacterial culture.

Mineral oil has been commonly used and recommended for overlaying mouse embryo cultures to prevent drying during the procedure.
Mineral oil is used for the following applications:

• Used for cell viability studies in preparing the culture media or media supplements
• Used tp protect array from evaporation by adding mineral oil around the array
• Used to prepare the needle for microinjection (microinjection needle pulling, sharpening, and loading)
• Used in PCR setup

Ready-to-use sterile filtered product conveniently packaged in PET bottles.