I am working with co-cultures of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) and bacteria. I typically streak my bacteria on tryptic soy agar, then grow overnight planktonic cultures in LB broth. Has anyone encountered adverse effects on MSC viability when MSC are exposed to small volumes of LB broth (1:6-1:10 ratio of broth: total media volume)?
There are two factors that may be at play in your system. First is the NaCl concentration of LB - dependent on recipe - is either 5 or 10 mg/mL. Isotonic saline is 0.9%, which is 9 mg/ml. If your LB is 5 mg/mL, you are making your solution hypotonic, which is incompatible with mammalian cells. At 10 mg/mL, you are making your solution slightly hypertonic, but I doubt that would be sufficient to be a problem if the exposure is relatively short.
The other issue is pH. Bacteria are way less sensitive to pH than mammalian cells, which have to be at a pH of 7.2 to 7.4. There is no buffer in LB. I have a vague memory that LB is more acidic than 7.2 but it was decades ago that I worked with LB.
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