Summary

On 2023-03-27 I began a trial run of primary cultures from freshwater snails (species unknown). The main purpose of this was to receive training on using the inverted microscope and practice a general protocol for primary cell culturing. The observed protocol has been documented in my physical lab notebook found in the UW Tacoma lab. For all cultures regardless of species, dissection will occur in the main lab in a “non-sterile” environment. For Botryllus schlosseri this will occur under the microscope for the microdissection of individual zooids. Tissue will be placed in a 15 mL centrifuge tube containing liquid media (and likely antibiotics) for transfer to the biosaftey cabinet in the building next door (TPS).

Today 2023-03-28 I came and checked on my cultures for contamination and general growth using the EVOS inverted microscope. I have yet to develop an eye for cell types to interpret the images down below, but overall most of the petri dishes looked great with 90% attachment of tissue on all the plates I seeded. There appeared to be some level of microbial growth but we did not use any antibiotics in this procedure so this is to be expected Tissue types I seeded include, gonads, foot, and viscera.

Snail gonad primary cells

Snail foot primary cells

Snail viscera primary cells