Hi everyone,

I am following the protocol from Burja et al. (2022) for skin dissociation. My samples come from human skin, specifically scar tissue. At the end of the protocol, I stained the samples with trypan blue to identify dead cells. I found living skin cells (~30 µm in size), but also small particles (~5 µm) that are everywhere and get stained with trypan blue (I circled them in the picture).

Does anyone have an idea what these could be? I worked under sterile conditions, so I would be surprised if it were bacteria coming from my solutions. Could it be bacteria from the scar tissue? But why do they get stained? And what would you do to remove them?

Please help me with your ideas and experience. Thanks!