Disgusting Picture Finale (2)

It's a hard life, being a bacterial pellet. First you're brewed in a big set of flasks, before being spun into a solid mass and frozen at minue eighty degrees celcius for a number of days/weeks. Then you're thawed out at room temperature in some mildly pleasant (I assume) disruption buffer. If the term "disruption buffer" doesn't give you a warning, you're in for a big shock:


If you and your friends don't resuspend smoothly, you're targets for an old fashioned homogenising...


Once that's done, you have the essential appearance and texture of soup (lab hazard);


Until you've been run through the cell disrupter a few times:






Any researcher with a conscience would play Stabat Mater Dolorosa whilst this is happening, but usually the selfish fiends are more concerned with basic hygiene and the disrupter not overloading with pressure and exploding, sending shrapnel and bits of E. coli everywhere. Selfish.



After a 10,000g spin, this is what is left of the broken remains of our bacteria...nothing but a sulky grey mass in a gelationous supernatant.

So, add some Virkon (edible lab hazard) to it, and this is the result:


Once that has wreaked its work...


Ever want to spend a day in the life of a bacterial cell pellet? It's far from pretty...