Chlamydomonas Cells Sticking to GlassChlamydomonas Cells Sticking to Glass
>Light intensity is used to regulate the dilution-speed. The
>problem is that the algae are sticking to the glass, so the
>intensity measured is not any longer related to the
>concentration of algae.
>
>Does anyone know how to prevent the algae from sticking to
>the glass-surface? The reactor is now running for two
>weeks, and the problem appeared when the liquid velocity
>was enlarged.
These were the answers I got.
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You might try replacing the glass with plastic, which the flagella would be less apt to adhere to.
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*You might try using a low concentration of a protein such as BSA or *casein in your culture medium. I also seem to remember learning that *folks who work with Tetrahymena use low concentrations of a surfactant *in the culture medium. Marty Gorovsky at the University of Rochester *might help you on the last point.
* *We occassionally use BSA in our buffers for just the reason you *mentioned, but we have never tried using it for culturing cells. I *would expect that you would increase the potential for contamination *and that you would get foaming. If I were you I would try to get in *touch with someone who cultures large quantities of another *protozoan.
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*I am familiar with the problem of Chlamy cells sticking to the gals walls *of fermentors, I grow them in continuou cultures for moths. I solve the *problem in the followoing way. i introduce in the fermentor a teflon *covered long magnetic rod which is sterilized at the same time as the *fermentor and rests on the sides of the fermentorbottom. when there are *cells sticking on the walls, i use an external stron magnet to catch the *internal one and move the external magnet up and down or sideways so as to *scrap all the cells from the sinternal fermetno surface. this cleaning *procedure is done once every one or two days for a few minutes. Hope you *may use this idea and eventually improve on it. *Wish you luck,,
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*If I well remember, alternated day/night illumination leads *to the production of synchronous culture. * *For your problem, why don't you try to use optical fibers *as light source ?
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Of the previous answers I used only the magnetic rod, which works OK, but is not possible to clean the whole reactor with it, because there is a double wall to cool the suspension. A few days ago I added about 2% vol of polystyrene beads and they seem to be able to keep the walls fairly well cleaned.