I have tumour tissue (from cattle) derived cells that were cultured on corning flasks beside adherent cells. In each and every passage I am seeing many cells floating around in a bunch. They are showing dark centers and bright corners and their growth is very fast. However, I could see no moving particles after trying in 20,40X (I am adding ITS in medium).
To test that if these are spheroids/contamination or not we just isolated RNA from the pellet of these floating cells, made cDNA and then ran a regular PCR with canine adipose derived stem cell markers (which was available at that time in lab). When we did this, only LIN 28 expression was found in gel at around 226bp. To test again for contamination we ran PCR with 16s rRNA with DNA extracted from and it showed a strong band at around 500bp. We inoculated the supernatants in blood agar (no single growth found at 48hr) to determine whether it was yeast or mould.
The only remaining step is sequencing the 500 bp bands. But if these are solely microbes is it possible that they will express lin28 too?
Have attached a picture of the supernatant floating cells. If anyone suggest me which type of contamination it is, it will be of great help. Thanks!