Is there anyone have met with black swimming dots in your cells? How can I save my cells with black swimming dots. Recently, the cells in my lab were all contamination by black swimming dots, in this way cells were died. How to clean the incubator and how to wipe out the black swimming dots totally?
Hi Qiaoyou. Contamination is the curse of cell culture and you have my sympathies!
If your cells are contaminated they need to be discarded (add Sodium hypochlorite or bleach to them and the media bottle used and leave overnight in a fume cupboard).
To clean you incubator (assuming the incubator dos not have an automatic sterilisation procedure) remove all of the trays, put them in autoclavable bags (such as Biohazard bags) and autoclave them on a sterilisation setting. Also do this for the incubator water tray. You will require a large autoclave to do this.
If you do not have a large autoclave then clean with Microsol/Ethanol as detailed below and then place the trays in the TC hood and UV sterilise them.
Clean the incubator thoroughly with 10% Microsol followed by 70% Ethanol and finally spray with Biocide spray.
Do not forget to clean the glass doors and around the doors (where the rubber seal is).
Only use autoclaved water in the water tray containing an anti-bacterial/anti-fugal solution (this used to be copper sulphate in the past but generally Aquaclean is now used).
Clean your cell culture too (including the floors with 10% Microsol) and finally change to a new lab coat. We use lab coats specifically for cell culture and we do not use these coats outside of the cell culture suite.
I'm afraid if your cells are contaminated they cannot be saved and you will have to get new stocks out of LN2 (after the above cleaning procedure).
I hope this helps,
Gary
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