Tiny black particles vibrating in my cell culture...Contamination?

[redeamer]

chansw3 at hkucc.hku.hk (Sze Wah Agnes CHAN) wrote in message news:<401F830B at webmaila.hku.hk>...
> Dear cell culture friends,
> Have any of you seen these before?  If I pay very close attention, with only 
> 200X, I saw tiny black particles, some spindle shapes, some more round, 
> vibrating in my cell culture flasks.  Are they mere particles in Brownian 
> motion?  Or some kind of "living" contamination??  Culture medium appears 
> clear and cells seem to be growing OK.  Thanks in advance for sharing your 
> experience.
> Agnes
> 
> ---

Hi, Agnes... you ve mentioned the Brownian motion... but in brownian
motion there is motion... so do you have a motion on your plate when
it is immobilized under microscope.. if yes with a great probability
you have bacteria proliferating there... if that stuff is growing in
quantity that is for sure prokaryotes...

At the other hand there are cells that really want to live in
different sort of garbage stuff, or that is the way we think, cause we
dont know for sure:) we just dont like it under microscope:) I had an
experiance of working with LNCaP human prostate adenocarcinoma cell
line... that was an interesting one... a lot of debris were floating
around, and the cells were VERY SATISFIED with that, and when i tried
to wash the plate ---> their cell cycle slowed down...

So just stay calm and wathc your cells..


Cheers -->
Drew