2018 ASHS Annual Conference

In cell biology and microbiology related studies, accuracy and efficiency in cell culture quality checks are crucial in order to avoid any potential complications in downstream analysis. Usually, different cell parameters such as cell counting, cell size measurement and cell culture confluency are assessed and estimated visually in a subjective way. However, visual assessments are unreliable, time consuming and often yielding inaccurate results which lead to incorrect conclusions and incorrect recommendations. In this study, a novel imaging system was evaluated using Bacillus Atrophaeus cultures. Bacterial strains were used to accurately count cell number in an automated manner using embedded applications on the InCellis^® Smart Cell Imaging System. A series of images of the cultures were taken in phase contrast mode using 40x objective at different cell dilutions (2 x 10e6, 4 x 10e6, 8 x 10e5) . A total of five images of the bacterial culture were taken at different field of view using 40x magnification on InCellis^®, and were further used to estimate a total number of bacterial cells in the cell counting slide (18mm x 10mm). The results demonstrated that the system is capable of count total number of cells in a rapid manner and is a useful tool for cell density calculation. The cell counting application ensured a rapid and efficient quality control of the cell cultures and allowed to obtain robust results with a stain-free method in comparison to the standard method. The automated applications not only provide consistent results but also significantly reduce the hands-on time for all cell-based assays.