Harvest & Collection

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Harvest and Collection

Harvest and collection is the process used to retrieve biological agents and vaccines present in cell cultures or to harvest and collect stem cells from blood or bone marrow. Many bioresearch companies have sophisticated systems for harvesting and collecting cells. These systems make counting cells easier and they also protect against contamination.

Cells are harvested once the cells reach a density level in the cell culture medium that precludes further growth. The best time to harvest cells is when they are in a confluent state (at least 50% of the culture dish is covered and before 100% of the dish is covered).

Cells can be harvested using on of three methods:  Mechanical, using Proteolytic enzymes, or using EDTA.  Mechanical harvesting uses a rubber spatula to remove the cells from the growth surface or culture. This method is quick but can cause many cells to die because it is highly disruptive. This method is favored when harvesting lots of different samples of cells to prepare extracts.

In this case, viability of the cells doesn’t matter. Three enzymes; Trypsin, Collagenase, and Pronase can be used in combination with EDTA. The combination of these enzymes with the EDTA makes cells detach from the growth medium.

This method is easy but also has a downside. It can damage the cell surface by eating up exposed cell surface proteins. EDTA can be used alone to detach cells from their medium and it is gentler than using trypsin.

Normally, collected cells are placed in a new suspension, or growth medium to continue growing new cultures. This is referred to as passaging or splitting the cells.