cell culture contamination
 

I've noticed that the media in my flasks changes color after few days of incubation. Is it sign of contamination and of what kind? Tnx

Re: cell culture contamination
 

Hi

when cells grow they produce metabolites and the media PH changes. if the cells are growing fast then pH of media change in 2-3 days and it turns yellow and it indicate that you must passage the cells or change media now.

if there is some contamination then media usually get turbid and you can also visulize contamination by microscope.

gud luck for your work


best regards
aftab

Re: cell culture contamination
 

hi, i have fungal like contamination, can anyone help me to identify what are them? and i saw some spider web like, some spore like, are they all different or one species of mold that are at different stage?
here are the pictures:
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Re: cell culture contamination
 

I would like to know to eradicate them and prevent them from contaminating my other reagents or cell lines. Any comments and suggestions are more than welcome.

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Re: cell culture contamination
 

Did you ever identify that contamination? I have something floating in my medium that looks very similar and I don't know what it is. I've shown a bunch of a people in my department and nobody knows what it is. Here are some images.

Re: cell culture contamination
 

I have noticed black dots in my cell culture. They fidget, but do not move from one place to another. When I left cultures overnight, the medium (DMEM) was not clouded (as it usually is upon bacterial contamination) and the contamination had not increase.
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Re: cell culture contamination
 

Do your cells look healthy? If not that could be cell debris, from splitting them roughly or from becoming too confluent. If they are healthy looking it could be a severe mycoplasma infection. There are several kits available to test for mycoplasma, or you can just do a DAPI stain of your cells and if there is any DAPI staining the the cytoplasm that looks like dots that means you have a contamination.

Re: cell culture contamination
 

Not necessarily. If it turns to yellowish, it is normal becuase the cells are growing.

Re: cell culture contamination
 

If you noticed that there are many small dots moving or vibrating in the medium and they are much smaller than the cells, be careful, they may be bacteria.

Re: cell culture contamination
 

check this article, it may be relevant to your problem:
"Got black swimming dots in your cell culture? Identification of Achromobacter as a novel cell culture contaminant" Biologicals. 2010 March; 38(2): 273–277.