To keep dead cells when harvesting? - (Mar/12/2008 )

I did drug treatments on cells at say 48hrs. After 48hrs, I would harvest the cells. But is it ness to harvest dead cells which are

floating also? My cells are adherent.

Thanks in advance

What do you need to harvest your cells for? I assume you would want the protein from the cells.
Normally the dead cells break and float. Since the cells is break, the content of the cells is released into the media... so, do you still want the dead cells?

I extract RNA from cells... normally i would wash my monolayer with PBS or Hanks buffer before harvest, and keep only the adhered cells.

Hope this would help you to solve your problem.

Dead cells can release proteases and other enzymes which could alter things.

We donot use the dead cells for analysis.