I am doing HEK293 antibiotic selection after transfection, and everyday i find dead cells collected at the center of the well, although the plate is kept static in the incubator. Any plausible explanation of it?
I think this is the result of circular currents, evoked by moving the plate to the microscope.
Living cells have a number of interactions within the wells that determine their location within the well. These are determined by proximal, chemical, physical -taxis, allowing these to spread over the bottom of the well and away from other cells.
Dead cells do not adhere to these limitations, and are mostly affected by the physical environment, such as gravity and fluid movement.
Initially, with dynamic fluid movement (moving the plate) and further through basic fluidic static movement (Brownian motion) the media will have slight movements toward the outer wells, where the only movement from this location is inward. As with sound waves, the liquid bounces against the wall continually to a point of no resistance - taking the dead cells with it - to the center of the well.
This is a very drawn out explanation, but hopefully this helps answer your question.
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