Decrease of total cells in a stirred bioreactor cultivation? - (Jun/12/2018 )

Hello everybody,

I'm cultivating mammalian cells in a stirred bioreactor. The goal is to plot the growth curve and generate some data. Therefore samples are taken during the processes and analyzed with a NucleoCounter. After a few cultivations it is visible that in the death phase not just the death cell count is increasing but also the total cell count is decreasing. I try now to figure out why the total cell count is decreasing and have some ideas why, but actually I'm not sure about them. Can anyone help me to understand this phenomenon?

Thank you very much for your help and kind regards,

Angela

I don't know much about mammalian cells, but if cells are dying, they don't reproduce, and the total cell count decreases. Just a guess.