Click on a link below to view questions and answers relating to your selection.
Links throughout the answers will guide you to further information
on our website or from other sources.

Should you have any further questions, please contact MatTek Corporation at DishInfo

How can I control the temperature of the glass bottom dishes for in situ (live) microscopy?

1. Maintain sterility: Open dishes in a sterile environment (e.g. laminar flow hood).

2. Pre-equilibrate dishes: Incubate the dishes with culture medium. Pipet 2-3 ml of medium into the 35 mm dishes or 3-4 ml into the 50 mm dishes and incubate at 37° C for 15 minutes.

3. Add cell suspension to microwell: Remove the culture medium by aspiration and plate cells onto the glass surface. Pipet 250µl of the cell suspension (cells suspended in culture medium) into the 10 mm diameter microwells or 500µl of cell suspension into the 14-mm microwells. Incubate the dishes for 1 hour at 37° C.

4. Add additional medium: After 1 hour, gently fill the remainder of the dish with medium Add 2-3 ml to the 35 mm dishes or 3-4 ml for the 50 mm dishes. Note: After the initial one hour period to allow cells to attach to the glass surface, it is important to fill the dish to normal levels in order to minimize the effects of evaporation and to avoid inducing changes in osmolarity.

What type of glass bottom dish should I use to grow my cells?

It is hard to predict which type of glass bottom dishes (uncoated, poly-d-lysine coated, or collagen coated) will work best with your specific cell type. Many transformed or cancerous cell lines will grow on uncoated dishes. Poly-lysine coated dishes work well for neuronal culture and for many primary cells; other cells prefer a collagen coating. Also, many researchers purchase our uncoated dishes and apply their own specialized coating. You can also Google search for published methods utilizing glass bottom dishes and your cells (see below).

How can I use the glass bottom dishes to look at tissue slices?

The glass bottom dishes can also be used to image tissue slices. The slices are adhered to the dishes using Cell-Tak (BD BioSciences see: http://www.bdbiosciences.com/discovery_labware). A research paper utilizing MatTek's glass bottom dishes to perform confocal microscopy on brain slices is available.

How can I search for published methods utilizing MatTek's glass bottom dishes?

You can search Google for publications by using search terms: 'MatTek, glass bottom dishes, your cell type'. For instance, the search terms 'MatTek', 'glass bottom dishes' and 'Hela' will yield numerous articles utilizing MatTek's glass bottom dishes to culture Hela cells. You can also search by type of microscopy. Use the terms: 'MatTek, glass bottom dishes, your type of microscopy'. Note: If the exact glass bottom dish part number is unspecified in a literature article, it is safe to assume that uncoated dishes were used (e.g., P35G-0-14-C,
P35-1.5-14-C, etc.)

What should I do if my cells won't grow or if I want to improve growth in the glass bottom dishes?

A: Although our poly-d-lysine or collagen coating works well for the vast majority of customers, some customers find it necessary to coat the glass bottom dishes themselves. They purchase the uncoated dishes and use the following HCl pretreatment along with their coating of choice.

1. Under sterile conditions, pipette 250µl of 1 N HCl onto non-coated 10-mm glass bottom dishes (P35G-x-10-C or P50G-x-10-F); or pipette 500µl of 1 N HCl into the 14-mm glass bottom culture dish (P35G-x-14-C or P50G-x-14-F).

2. After 15 minutes, decant the HCl and rinse the dish 3x with phosphate buffered saline (PBS) and 2x with ultrapure H2O.

3. Apply your coating to the dishes.

4. Add a similar volume of the medium in which you will plate your cells to pre-equilibrate the glass surface. Incubate the medium in glass bottom dishes for 15 mins at 37 C. Remove the medium and then plate your cells.

To try a sample of non-coated glass bottom dishes, complete the Free Sample request Form.

A-DC3

What type of collagen is applied to the collagen coated glass bottom dishes
(part #: P35GCol-x-xx-C or P50GCol-x-xx-F)?

The collagen used to coat the P35GCol-x-xx-C or P50GCol-x-xx-F glass bottom dishes is type 1 rat tail collagen.

How can I control the temperature of the glass bottom dishes for in situ (live) microscopy?

In order to approximate physiological conditions, the temperature of the medium contained within the glass bottom dishes can be controlled by using a microscope stage heater and an appropriate stage adapter.

For use with the P35G dishes (Corning 35 mm dishes) only: Culture dish heaters (part # DH-35), microscope stage adapters (part #: SA-microscope type), heater controller (part # TC324-B), and connecter cable (part # CC-28) are available from Warner Instrument Corporation. Information is available on line at: http://www.warneronline.com/products.cfm

How can I perfuse the cells growing in the glass bottom dishes?

Warner Instruments, Inc. makes a number of perfusion adapters which are compatible with MatTek's 35 mm series of glass bottom dishes (P35G-xx-xx-C).

What is the chemical compatibility of the Glass Bottom Dishes and Multi-Well Plates? Can they be used with organic solvents?

The body of the glass bottom dishes and multi-well plates is made from polystyrene. Therefore, they have limited compatibility with organic solvents. Please see the chemical compatibility table.