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Our final test was to grow cells in the bioreactor, using C2C12 mouse cells as an example, along with a batch culture control to compare with.
We collected media samples at the beginning and end to measure with mass spectrometry. This was designed to give us an idea whether or not the system succeeded in maintaining the custom target conditions.
Unfortunately, the Python program crashed during the experiment and it was not completed. However, we were still able to acquire some basic information from the incomplete experiment.
Even though the bioreactor stopped working and became a batch reactor after the program crashed, it was still much more effective at keeping the nutrient environment constant. These results can qualitatively show the utility of this perfusion system, by better maintaining nutrient concentrations. Nutrients in the batch culture, starting from a low physiological concentration, were severely depleted. Usually, regular media with high concentration is used, in order to last until the next passage. A mini perfusion bioreactor system allowed cell culture at low nutrient concentrations that are much closer to those in vivo and can be held constant. Several more complete experiments would be necessary to demonstrate this conclusively.
Fan Wei
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