I was cultivating HEK-293s which were modified with CRISPR under the following conditions:
temp: 37°C
CO2: 5%
humidity(?): 98%
But out incubator failed during the night (completely failed, including the alarm that should have gone off once it lost 5% CO2) and the next morning (which is today) we came back to yellowed medium in our flasks and really bad-looking cells. I just put them back into a different (working) incubator with 37°C/5% CO2 again to try to rescue them but I'm not sure if there is a better way? Should I change the medium first, then put them back? Should I rather harvest them now and distribute the whole batch into 96-well plates to have them more compact together? Is there any other option to rescue them? A single surviving cell would be enough (I hope) to regrow the batch?
Unfortunately it is not looking good for your cells. You could try and remove the medium and with it the dead and floating cells to see if there is still anything attached to the flask and if so add new medium. The dead cells usually still give signals that might trigger cell death in the others. But in the end, you don't know if the stress on the cells modified anything and you might miss or have an extra effect.
I hope it works out, good luck!
Edward
Hello
I agree with Edward J. Robinson,
See links below.
http://www.upci.upmc.edu/cytometry/pdf/02FicolHypaq.pdf
http://www2.egr.uh.edu/~nvaradar/private/Prots/Fico_LD.pdf
Good Luck