Hi friends,
I have a question about my fibroblasts cell culture. Lately they have been looking different than usual. As you can see in the photo (second one), the cytoplasm appears to be much more granular and the mitochondria less visible, compared to the photo opposite. Culture medium has correct color, cells grow as always.
Is this normal, or is it a sign of a cell culture infection?
It is possible that you are seeing cellular senescence. The increase in granularity of the cytoplasm (lysosome, etc) and loss of mitochondria is consistent with senescence). This paper gives a bit of an overview:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-021-00121-8
Hello Beata Nosal ,
Just seeing your pictures, I would suggest like Ellen that your cells are suffering/dying. But if they really grow as usual, I also would not worry too much ...
Apart from the culture medium, did you check the temperature and CO2 of your incubator ?
Do you see anything abnormal floating in the medium, which would be a sign of contamination ?
Also, did you change anything in the composition of your medium, maybe the reference of the basal medium, the serum batch, any concentration of potential additive ?
As I work at a cell culture facility, I have a lot of other questions to ask but I thought it would be too much for one answer. Hope this already helps a bit !
Dear Beata,
I completely agree with Ellen and Benedicte, accumulation of different origin granularity is typical for elder fibroblasts, for ex typical after passage 15th for gingival and skin fibroblasts, so for optimal quality better to use cells under passage 10th. Other thing is the age of cell donor, the older the donor, the senescence will appear faster.
Best, Kasia
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