Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Cells, Microbes & Viruses => Topic started by: scientizscht on 22/11/2018 13:27:47
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Hello!
Are there techniques to find cells in water solutions?
For example in urine?
How do they do it?
Thanks!
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Anyone please?
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Centrifuge it so the cells "fall" to the bottom.
There are also light scattering techniques etc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_counting
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Mmm there isn't a filter or something?
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Sure - you can use filters that let through water, salts and proteins, and hold back cells.
These days, you can even get filters that hold back viruses.
But the size boundaries are a bit vague - there are viruses discovered in seawater that were mis-identified as cells because they were so huge.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandoravirus
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Craig Venter's Sorcerer II expedition travelled around the world, sampling seawater every 200 miles.
They filtered the water through different sized filters, then just sequenced any DNA they found. This gave them a good idea of what types of cells and viruses were present.
if you ever make it to the sea, and you swallow a mouthful of seawater, keep in mind that each milliliter has about a million bacteria and on the order of 10 million viruses.
See: https://en.tiny.ted.com/talks/craig_venter_on_dna_and_the_sea