Question

You are planning an experiment using the monolayer cell line BIO314. You know that 5.30E+05 BIO314 cells gives you a 80.00% confluency in a T75 flask. Determine the number of cells needed to add to a T25 flask to obtain 20.00% confluency. Please answer using the scientific notation and one decimal point. 4.42×10⁴

^{4.42x10^4 is the correct answer I just want to see the work to get there}

Answer 1

Ans:- Confluency is generally defined as that how much the cells have occupied the space in the medium. If you tell that plate is 20 % confluent means that only 20% of the total space in the medium is occupied by the cell rest 80% are available to support more cell growth.

We will solve this problem using simple mathematical rule.

Step 1:- The cells at 80% confluency in T75 flask is 5.3 *105 (the value 5.3 E +05 can be written as 5.3 *105).

Step 2:- The cells at 1% confluency in T75 flask will be (5.3 * 105/ 80) * 1.

Step 3:- The cells at 20 % confluency in T75 flask will be (5.3 *105/80)* 20

Thus, the cells at 20% confluency in T75 flask will be 1.325 *105.

Now, we have calculate the number of cells at 20% confluency in T75 flask.

As, we know that the surface area of T75 flask is 3 times that of T25 flask.

So, we can say that 3 times less cells are required to reach the same confluency in T25 flask compared to T75 flask.

So, the cells required to reach 20% confluency in T25 flask = number of cells at 20% confluency in T75 flask / 3

= 1.325 * 105 / 3 cells.

= 44166 cells = 4.4 * 104 cells

Thus, the total number of cells required to reach 20% confluency is 4.4 * 104 cells.

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