remedy against cell contamination - (Oct/19/2006 )

im working with HeLa cells & suddenly all my cultures are contaminated.The cells are are detaching from the surface showing apoptosis.I want to know is there any way that we can decontaminate the cells or throwing away the cells is the only solution?Plz help.

if really all cultures are contaminated even your stock flask, I advise to throw all away and start a new culture from a frozen stock; use penicillin and streptomycin in your media

Are you sure it's contaminated? Cell death is not necessarily a sign of contamination. Usually you can see the bacteria in the media, the media is opaque, and yellow. If you're sure it's contamination you have to throw away the cells, as kosmodrom said, and you need to check your media to see if it is the source of contamination.

I've never worked with Hela cells, but it's possible the death is due to some other factor, such as low CO2, the wrong media, too low or too high confluency. They may be easily detached just by moving the plate or by changing media. I would check these factors if the contamination is not obvious.

Dear Minnee,

Hela's are the easiest cells to grow. They grow very quickly, are tolerant of low CO2 concentrations and low serum levels. They can be grown in different media's i.e. RPMI, MEM or DMEM. Use can use any Tissue culture plastics....they are very unfussy cells. You will have contamination if the cells are stripping off from the monolayer. You CANNOT clean them up. We grow most of our cells in Antibiotic free media. Hela's really should be grown without any Antibiotics IF :-

i) Your TC Facility is clean

ii) Good Asceptic Technique

i agree with minee... what would happen if we forget to put serum in the media?.... apoptosis