Effect of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) deprivation on Fibroblast cells viability and morphology

In applications related to remote areas and microgravity experiments, access to proper CO 2 incubation for in vitro experiments is difficult and, in some cases, impossible. It is important to assess the time period in which one can handle and transport cells whilst maintaining a reasonable viability. The effects of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) deficiency, in an in vitro environment, on the viability and morphology of fibroblast cells are looked at in this work. A CO 2 -free environment was provided to fibroblast cells, and their behavior was tracked over an established amount of time. The measured viability of the cells was higher than 80% up until 7h, where it appeared that the cell shape did not change much as was visualized by the microscope and quantified by measuring the average width and length of the cells. The cell shape started to change considerably at 10 h accompanied by a stronger viability decrease, i.e. 9%/h vs 3%/h. After 16 hours, the experiment came to an end with almost total cell viability loss.