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Hi Guenter,

Two options for sterilization, rather than autoclave.   If a
hospital/medical school is nearby, they use a heat/chemical combo on
surgical instruments that isn't as hot as an  autoclave.  No chemical
residue and it leaves the material good enough for implants as well as cell
culture.  Or, radiation works well if you can find a source.

I've done similar processing of TC plastics and used 70% alcohol as a final
soak.  It won't do viruses, but if that's not a concern, it does a good job
of ridding the prep of bugs.
Good luck,
Carl

Carl A. Boswell, Ph.D.
Molecular and Cellular Biology
University of Arizona
520-626-8469
FAX 520-621-3709
----- Original Message -----
From: "Guenter Giese" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2004 2:29 AM
Subject: glass bottom cell culture plates: cleaning / reuse for cell
culture?


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Dear microscopists,

multiwell glass bottom cell culture plates suitable for confocal microscopy
are quite expensive (15 to 50 ? / $ each), and we would like to reuse them
if possible. We do time lapse microscopy experiments on living cells

Reuse of glassware in cell culture was (is still?) commonplace, but the
combination of glass and plastic and the high surface to volume ratio of
multiwell plates may be disadvantageous in this respect.


Two scenarios:

i) Only some wells of the multiwell plate are used for cell culture in one
experiment: Used wells could be treated individually after the experiment
to kill any living cells / bacteria and to inactivate viruses.
- Which chemicals / methods are safe in preventing collateral damage to
neighboring, unused wells?

ii) All wells are used:
- By which method could one clean and treat the plates to allow proper
growth of the cells (cleaning / surface treatment protocol)?

I know that it is wise to use new material, but at least for preliminary
checks we would like to reuse the plates. One could also preclean new
plates to allow comparison of results (after comparison of results obtained
with used vs unused plates).

Guenter

------------------------------------------
Dr. Guenter Giese
Light Microscopy Facility
Dept. of Biomedical Optics, MPI fuer Medizinische Forschung
Jahnstr. 29, D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany
Phone (+49) 6221-486-360 (Fax: -325)
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.mpimf-heidelberg.mpg.de/~ggiese/lightmicro