Hi,
Recently, I noticed that my cell flasks were doing something kind of strange. I had them stacked in groups of four. The one at the bottom seemed totally fine, but as I went up the tower, cell attachment decreased significantly. The 4th flask was nearly entirely detached/dying.
Notably, this occurred with a slightly more sensitive cell line – The other cell line I was using seemed fine.
I have previously had issues with culturing cells and unexplainable cell death (in iPSCs), although this wasn’t in a tower – Just a single plate.
I’m not too brushed up on my physics, but am I right in thinking that this could be to do with vibrations? Do vibrations increase through a tower/stack? I checked the incubator shelf, and it seemed to be vibrating a little bit.
Anyone got experience with something like this?
Thanks!
Hello Darius McPhail
The uneven cell growth between identical culture flasks seeded at the same time may be due to temperature variations within the incubator.
Stacking cell culture flasks together can result in flask-to-flask differences in temperature and growth rate. The culture flask at the bottom of the stack, which is in contact with the metal shelf, warms up fastest when initially placed in the incubator. The culture flask on the top is likely to cool faster, while the culture flasks in the middle are more insulated from any temperature fluctuations.
It is important to consider these positional effects when you place your culture flasks in the incubator. So, avoid stacking culture flasks on top of one another as far as possible.
Best.
Sound stimulation induces different responses in the cell. The results also showed that such stimulations affect cells differently according to cell type Darius McPhail
Hi Darius McPhail , as you asked about the effect of vibration on cell culture. so the answer is yes, vibration creates mechanical forces which can increase the cell membrane permeability, this depolarizes the actin filaments which creates the pores in the cell membrane, as it is uncontrolled, so it is an irreversible process that disrupts your cells.
Hello Darius McPhail,
vibrations do impact your cells during growth and may lead to detachment of some cells. But, I don't think that your CO2 incubator would be vibrating that much that your cells start detaching that significantly. Instead, the conditions might be fluctuating inside the incubator or simply due to a positioning effect (as mentioned by Malcolm Nobre. This has never happened with me during cell culturing. But in your case, I would suggest that you should avoid stacking your tissue culture flasks and also recommend that you check the temperature of your incubator.
Some incubator fans can produce vibrations strong enough to detach cells from their substrate. This is especially problematic for colony forming experiments.
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