Cell Growth and Monitoring
The Cell Growth and Monitoring Facility offers an infrastructure for prospecting, growing microorganisms under controlled conditions and cell monitoring. Its work encompasses three phases: (i) the prospecting phase aims to search for, cultivate, learn about and select microorganisms of interest to discover their biotechnological potential; (ii) the screening/optimization phase carries out clone screening and characterization of high-yield strains, monitoring and optimization of cultivation parameters and small-scale feeding strategies (volumes up to 2 mL); (iii) the cell monitoring phase carries out morphology, viability and cell screening analysis.
Main skills and techniques:
- Initial microbial growth screening on a microplate scale;
- Real-time cell growth monitoring;
- Microbial growth in microbioreactors (volumes up to 2 mL);
- Screening, strain characterization and optimization of cultivation parameters;
- Analysis of morphology, viability and cell sorting using flow cytometry.
Equipment
Prospecting:
- Growth Profiler 960: monitors cell growth in up to 10 96-well microplates simultaneously. Cell growth curves monitored in real time are obtained through photo capture and measurement in “Green values” units, which can be converted into optical density measurement values;
- Spectrofluorimeter Tecan Spark: used for prospecting microbial growth on a smaller scale or carrying out enzymatic tests. It can monitor absorbance, fluorescence or luminescence over time and under controlled rotation conditions, temperature and humidity.
Screening/Optimization:
- BioLector XT microbioreactor (Beckman Coulter): performs microbial growth under controlled conditions (microbioreactor) on a scale of up to 2 mL. Ideal for microbial, fungal and algae cultivation with real-time assessment of biomass, pH, dissolved oxygen and fluorescence for aerobic and anaerobic organisms.
Cell Monitoring:
- BD Accuri™ C6 Plus: flow cytometer for cell morphology and viability analysis (1 blue laser and 1 red laser);
- BD FACS Melody™ Cell Sorter: flow cytometer for cell sorting (1 blue laser, 1 red laser and 1 violet laser and 10 parameters).