MCF7 cells vitality - (Jan/18/2012 )

Dear all,
I have a somehow strange question. I started recently to culture MCF7 cells, and my question would be how long can they be kept in pure PBS with no considerable damage? Do they resist for minutes or even hours?
Thanks.
GW

Depends what you mean by considerable - they will start to run out of metabolites almost immediately, but won't show signs of lifting off for a few hours.

Thank you, actually I need them to keep in PBS for 5-6 hours. How are they affected by deficit of metabolites? How much time they have before starting apoptosis?
Thank you for reply.

A deficit of metabolites (e.g. sugars) means that many vital cell processes will slow down and/or stop. How this will affect your particular situation is entirely dependent on what you are doing/looking for. I don't know how long until you will see apoptosis, but it is likely that some cells will apoptose almost immediately.

You could try storing them in FCS free medium instead of PBS.