One of my fav lab hacks: store your E coli pellets in freezer bags. They freeze in 5 mins, resuspend in under 3 mins (in the bag!), take up less freezer space, and don't waste conical tubes!
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What’s the best way to resuspend them after this? Do you just add buffer to the bag?
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Oh I should’ve read the tweet more carefully lol
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If it goes right in the -80 does it really matter if it's sterile? Net weight plastic is still definitely less than a 50 mL conical. Plus there's no supply shortage of freezer bags
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and… if you have the right bag you can stick it into the centrifuge bottle and harvest in the bag. No need to get the cells out of the bottom of the bottle or even wash the bottle afterwards.
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Oh I'll have to try this sometime! I'm still using a spatula to transfer
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My grad school lab did this! Works great ... as long as you use high quality bags. We had a few accidents with ruptured bags ... it was messy!
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Good point - the ziplocks that are specifically labeled as freezer bags are the way to go for this.
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Likely not, this is just for storing pellets prior to protein purification.
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Next step for these is a freeze/thaw and sonication, so contamination isn't a big concern. Maybe I'll do a follow-up post with the next processing steps.
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I've actually been thinking about using one of those cardboard file holder things. Right now I just stack 'em.
But also now I want a -80 in filing cabinet format...
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Standard centrifuge bottles. Then a cake spatula to transfer.
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oh yea, we would do this with fermenter runs!
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Did someone say lab snacks 
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~20g pellet. I suppose it could be a super overkill glycerol stock lol
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this tweet was so much better when i thought you were just awful at pressing tortillas. i take pride in my chaotic freezer shelf.
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Forbidden tilla!
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Small Things Considered
@STCmicrobeblog
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Replying to @hauryliuk
@christo71213435 : after decanting the supernatant, a fast-thawing cell pellet can also be obtained by vortexing it in the residual liquid in the capped centrifuge tube, and then freezing the tube in an almost horizontal position. advantage: one-tube reaction, no contamination.
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What was the source of the culture any safety testing?
Academic Lab, no GXP, GLP?
Lab bench with wood and chipped surface is bad optics.
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autoinduction in BL21 De3. And lol, this lab space is pretty standard fare for academia 
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Cake spatula!
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After resuspended, how do you transfer it? Or you sonicate directly in the bag?
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Follow-up tweets here:
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Greg Dodge
@GregDodge9
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Follow up tweets: remove from freezer, punch, add buffer + massage
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I mean I’ve never kept a pellet long-term, surely a day or two is fine
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And plastic bags are more sustainable than plastic conical centrifuge tubes? Not sure whether I missed the point here?
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Net mass of plastic is certainly lower. Mostly its an efficiency thing. Thawing 20+ mL of solid cell pellet in a conical can take over an hour vs a couple of minutes here.
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