Possible Fungal/Mold infection? - (Sep/17/2010 )

Hi everyone,

I've noticed something unusual in my tissue culture flasks. I'm growing proximal tubule cells.
Floating on the top of the medium is a very strange, what I can only call, membrane. It's composed of what looks like threads (I know that sets alarm bells off because it sounds like fungal hyphae), but if you look closely you can see there is an actual substance (membrane?) between the threads. The most unusual part is that there are quite a few of my cells in amongst this material. The whole mass moves as one, i.e. everything seems to be connected, and as I mentioned earlier, it sits at the very top of the medium and is only visible under the microscope. My cells seem fine, no slowing of growth, no change in morphology, no loss of epithelial characteristics. Also, I'm not sure if it's relevant, but my cells lay down a pretty substantial extra cellular matrix when left for a while in a flask/plate.

Does anybody have any suggestions or comments as to what I might be looking at here?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Rob

-robradford-

Hola,Sometimes after serum inactivation and frezzing of aliquots, some precipitation of proteins occurs. When you thaw the serum aliquot for adding to your medium, the protein precipitates are mixed and the cells will grow with they and nothing occurs; but the first time that you see this formation you are frightened, thinking in an aspergillus culture. When you have a fungal contamination and you see the aggregates of hiphae, the medium is turbid and changes of colour. If you have more serum aliquots check the presence of this formations.Good luck

-protolder-

protolder on Fri Sep 17 11:17:11 2010 said:

Thanks for the reply protolder. Unfortunately our TC medium is serum free to allow proximal tubule epithelial differentiation so it isn't that. I'll take some pictures over the weekend maybe and post them here.

Thanks for the help, and have a good weekend,

Rob

-robradford-

Its not a piece of tissue is it?

-bob1-