Watching time-lapse videos of cell cultures can be fascinating! Compared to a still image from a classical bench top microscope, observing cultured cells moving, dividing, and interacting with each other amazes even experienced scientists.
In addition to these fascinating images, time-lapse microscopy provides so many important details about cell cultures. According to the Good Cell Culture Practice guidelines outlined above, a basic and detailed description of the cultured cells in experimental reports is mandatory. Time-lapse microscopy helps to better characterize cell cultures. It provides information on cell proliferation, morphology evolution, long-period cytotoxicity, cell variability, cell-cell interaction, cell-substrate interaction, motility and chemotaxis. Changes in cell population over time can be observed by comparing images recorded at different time points during cell culture. Furthermore, video recordings of different cell populations can be compared to study the impact of the differentiating condition, e.g. wild type versus mutant variant of a cell line, different donors of a primary cell type or the same cell type cultured in two different media.