Isolation of Viable Spheroids from Algimatrix™
Method by using Tri Sodium Citrate
- Aspirate the media from the well of Algimatrix™ plate
- Add 200 µl of incomplete media to each well and incubate for 5 minutes at 37°C
- Transfer 6 sponges to a 15 ml conical centrifuge tube
- Add 6 ml (1ml/sponge) of iso-osmolar 55mM tri-sodium citrate solution
- Incubate the tube at room temperature for 4-5 minutes by gently mixing in a head to tail fashion
- Spin the tube at 200xg for 7 minutes at 25°C and discard the supernatant
- Resuspend the spheroid pellet in complete medium for further use
Preparation of iso-osmolar tri-sodium citrate solution
- Prepare 55 mM tri sodium citrate solution from 1M stock solution
- Adjust the Osmolarity of citrate solution to that of the culture media using 100 g/L of NaCl solution. (Adding 1 g/L NaCl to the solution will raise the osmolarity by 30 mOsm)
- Adjust the pH with 1M citric acid solution to pH 7.2
Calculating osmolarity in complex solutions:
As described under Units of Measure, the osmolarity of a simple solution is equal to the molarity times the number of particles per molecule.
Glucose has 1 particle
NaCl has two
MgCl2 has three
Tri-sodium citrate has four (HOC(COONa)(CH2COONa)2)
Note - Osmolarity of 55 mm tri-sodium citrate solution is 220 mOsm and is adjusted to 340 mOsm if cells are cultured in DMEM (DMEM Osmolarity range 322-374).
Osmolarity of different media and salts
| Media | Osmolarity in mOsms | Salts | Osmolarity in mOsms |
| DMEM | 322-374 | Earle’s BSS | 271-308 |
| RPMI | 268-319 | Hank’s BSS | 265-305 |
| Mc Coy’s 5A | 275-320 | Gly BSS | 265-305 |
| Ham’s F12 | 285-332 | DPBS | 280-311 |
| MEM (Earl’s salts) | 278-314 | BME (Earls salts) | 282-318 |
| MEM (Hank’s salts) | 274-317 | (Hanks salts) | 270-310 |
Method by using Versene
- Aspirate the media from the well of Algimatrix™ plate
- Add 200 µl of incomplete media to each well and incubate for 5 minutes at 37°C
- Transfer 5 sponges to a 15 ml conical centrifuge tube
- Add 10 ml Versene to the centrifuge tube containing 5 sponges, and place on an inverter at 37°C for 25 minutes
- Spin the tube at 200xg for 7 minutes at 25°C and remove supernatant
- Resuspend the spheroid pellet in complete medium for further use
Viability studies of Spheroids are done by using trypan blue dye exclusion method
- Mix equal volumes of spheroid suspension with 2 X trypan blue dye
- Place the mixture on a glass slide
- Observe the viability of spheroids under a phase contrast microscope