I found two problems when culturing K562 cells. One is that cell size varies after viral infection and Puro(or Blast) screening. The other one is that K562 cells occasionally differentiate to single spindle-shaped, adherent cells though the number is less than 0.1%.
Are these cells normal? If not, what should I do to avoid those？
Hello Lixin Xiao ,
In my experience, it is normal for K562 to have different sizes under stressful conditions : they tend to easily get bigger, and if they get really large (I have observed cells 2-3 times the usual size) it means they are dying. It is important to check the ratio of "normal" vs "really big" cells, but it is not something I would absolutely worry about if you are submitting them to some stress. I don't know if you keep some untreated cells in parallel to compare, but it can help, just to be sure.
Regarding the spindle-shaped, adherent cells, I would really not worry either : some clones of K562 adhere easily to the surface, I have seen some with almost 60% that are attached (lightly) to the culture flask, but if you rinse them gently with your medium they resuspend. And it is the same with the ones that have a weird shape, depending on the clones (ie what genes you express / what construction you put in them) it is normal.
Especially if they represent less than 0.1% of your population, I would really not worry about it ! Cell culture is not perfect and you always get some variations, with experience you can decide if these variations are acceptable or not.
Hope this helps a bit. Good luck for your experiments !
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