I had to work with HeLa cells, and I have a question related to cell culture work. What would happen if I wash HeLa cells with water? I am asking this as when i wash the cells with water, all cells are gone or somehing went wrong and could cause a harm to the cells . Any help?
Wash your cells with a buffer such as PBS. Water will likely result in hypotonic lysis of the cells.
Wash your cells with a buffer such as PBS. Water will likely result in hypotonic lysis of the cells.
Water will kill all your cells instantaneously due to osmotic effects, as mentioned by Bruce. We actually use it instead of lysis buffer when we wish to release isotope trapped in the cytosol after uptake experiments.
As far as I know, basically every cells (not only HeLa) do not like to stay in water (unless you want to lyse them, as Birger says). In normal cell culture procedures, washings are always done with a buffer (such as PBS).
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