PBS with and without calcium/Magnesium - Ca is good for you...is it good for PBS? (Oct/21/2008 )

Hey guys, been lurking for a while and I appreciate everyone's topics and techniques the past few yrs reading. Now I have a question of my own and I hope I can start help answering other's questions.

We are beginning to dissect eye balls (pigs and humans) and plan to use PBS for "wetting" and "wiping" purposes during dissections.
I noticed that there are normal PBS and PBS with Ca/Mg . My big question was, does it make that much of a difference? and if yes/no, what are each practically used for?


Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated.

:-)

PBS without Ca/Mg is used to wash adherent cell cultures before detaching them from the growing surface, as adhesion proteins require divalent cations to function. PBS with Ca/Mg is used to wash adherent cell cultures when one merely wishes to wash and have the cells remain adherent. As to whether one or the other is better to wash whole tissue during dissection, I do not know, but my guess is that it doesn't matter.