Analysis of the causes of cell vacuolization in cell culture flasks

 There are thousands of cells in the world, and it takes a lot of effort to keep them healthy. In the process of cell culture, we will encounter various problems, among which the vacuolation of cells in the cell culture flask is a common one. In this case, the reasons can be analyzed from the following aspects.

1. Cell aging: This situation often occurs in the process of primary cell culture. Some cells are in a terminally differentiated state and will not divide again. After a long time, they will vacuole and die.

          FuDau T25 Cell Culture Flasks

2. Trypsin digestion: Excessive digestion time will also affect the state of cells and cause vacuoles. In addition, poor control of the pipetting force during digestion of cells will generate air bubbles, resulting in the phenomenon of vacuolation.

3. PH value: If the pH value of the culture medium in the cell culture flask is too different from the normal pH value of the cells, it will easily lead to vacuolation.

4. Autophagy: starvation-induced autophagy will also form vacuoles due to lack of nutrients in cells, but such vacuoles cannot be seen under the light microscope, and can only be observed under the electron microscope.

                FuDau T75 Cell Culture Flasks

5. Contamination: Once some cells become vacuolated and continue to culture, the range of vacuoles will expand, even after passage. In this case, the cells cannot be rescued. Later tests found that such cells were infected with Mycoplasma/Chlamydia.

6. Cell metabolism: In the process of cell culture, due to insufficient serum concentration, drug action, external stimuli, etc., cell metabolism problems occur, and cell vacuolization will occur under endoplasmic reticulum stress.

The vacuolization of cells in the cell culture flask can be analyzed from the above six aspects. After finding out the specific reasons, corresponding measures can be taken.