Assume that we have baterial solution with concentration of 10^6 cell/ml. If we centrifuge 2ml of the solution, pour off the supernatant and replace the old solution with the new one, do we still have the same number of bacteria as before (2*10^6 cell)?
As far as, i experienced in my experiments, there is some loss of bacteria while centrifugation and removal of supernatant. It also depends at which rpm u centrifuge the bacterial solution.Best way plate your supernatant on bacterial agar plates,and analyze the growth of bacterial colonies.
In my experience you will experience loss of cells. It depends on a number of factors - speed of centrifuge and how long you centrifuge for. I think it will be impossible to recover 100 % of viable cells. As Gulshan suggested, centrifuge your cells and determine cfu/ml of your supernatant and your resuspended pellet and compare your cfu/ml results.
Centrifugation of cultures merely pellets the cells, but some cells donot pellet well remain in supernatant. In that case population counts drops a bit.
Cell loss of alive picoplankton (eukaryotic or prokaryotic cell) can be avoided by adding cell and plastic surfactant before centrifugation. See the protocole described in Biegala et al. 2003. Even fragile eukaryotic flagellates are not damaged by centrifugation when you add cell surfactant.
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