I\'m writing a conclusion to \"Determining Optimum Cell Density\" Lab in Cell Bi
ID: 324816 • Letter: I
Question
I'm writing a conclusion to "Determining Optimum Cell Density" Lab in Cell Biology. Our professor is asking about the bigger picture and why cell density is important and how we can build off this experiment, and honestly I'm just confused on the whole thing. For the experiment, I got bad results and messed up along the way somehow, but I think I was suppose to notice that the more cell culture I put into a plate with some media at one time, the faste that the growth rate of the cells will be right? I'll copy what I've written so far below. But yeah I'm just struggling with the bigger picture. Also could you check me on if I'm on the right path with the paragraph in what might have possibly gone wrong in the experiment? Thanks!
We know cells follow a distinctive growth pattern in the lab when they are subcultured. They go through slow growth at first to adjust to their environment, but once they are adapted, their growth rate rapidly increases as they consume the growth medium. Once they go through all of the growth medium however, their growth rate declines and eventually levels out and comes to a stop because of the lack of food and room to grow. For the purpose of this experiment, 2 mL of fresh media was dispersed in a 6-well plate and different measurements of cell culture were placed into each well to determine if cell density plays a role in the cell’s growth rate.
Upon observing the cell plate the next week after subculturing the test amounts into each well, each of the 6 wells showed to bare similar low confluency of around 10%. Originally, the idea that plating a higher density would increase the growth amount and lead to a higher confluency the following week, but this wasn’t the case.
Our results, however, are not in line with what is known about cell density so there must have been some errors made while subculturing to give such a low confluency percentage. First, there could have been a problem with the contents of the media. The media may not have been a correctly measured solution leading to the cells not getting enough nutrients needed to grow. There also could have been an issue with how the plate was handled. It may not have always been leveled while being carried and some cells may have become attached to the top of the plate instead of mixed throughout the media below. Improper measurements of media to cell culture ratio could also have played a role in why confluency was not higher. Perhaps conversion factors played a role in leading to faulty measurements.
In order to eliminate sources of error, a fresh batch of media must be made and new cells must be harvested and subcultured. Careful monitoring of the plate handling should be a priority to eliminate cells being dispersed elsewhere from the media. Double checking media to cell culture ratios, and also that the correct conversion factors are being utilized.
Explanation / Answer
Although the explanation has been written nicely, but some technical points are missing from it. Please incorporate these points as well in the explanation:
Thus, the above mentioned points can be added to this description which will make the reasoning complete.