The Effect of Chemicals on Glial Cell Counts

Overview

Objectives/Goals My objective is to determine whether rat glial cell colony formation is decreased when caffeine or kava is added to the growth medium. Methods/Materials I incubated 60 wells of glial cells in control, kava, and caffeine medium, using two levels of chemicals, 50mg/L and 20mg/L. I initially thawed the cells and incubated them overnight before washing them and detaching them with trypsin. I created a cell sample with a dilution factor of 2 by adding 50uL of trypan blue to 50uL of my sample. This stained the dead cells blue and allowed me to count the cells in a hemocytometer. The viable cells/mL sample was then diluted with medium to 200 cells/mL for healthy cell growth. I then incubated 60 cell samples for seven days, and fixed, stained, and counted the cell colonies. Results The cells cultured in 50mg/L of caffeine had a 34% lower cell colony count when compared to the control samples. The cells cultured in 50mg/L of kava had a 41% lower cell colony count when compared to the control samples. Therefore, 50mg/L of the caffeine and kava affected cell proliferation counts greatly and were statistically significant. The cells cultured in 20mg/L of caffeine had a 1% lower cell colony count compared to the control samples. The cells cultured in 20mg/L of kava had a 3% lower cell colony count compared to the control samples. Therefore, 20mg/L of the chemicals had no statistically significant effect. Conclusions/Discussion My conclusion is that 50mg/L of caffeine and kava added to growth medium significantly affects brain cell proliferation, yet 20mg/L of the chemicals have an insignificant impact. While coffee consumption is a well established part of American culture, Kava cafes are new in California. This study suggests that healthy ingestion levels of both chemicals, but especially kava, given the 41% decreased cell count from the control, should be further researched with possible consumption levels labeled and monitored.

Competition history

• CSEF 2012 Pharmacology/ Toxicology · Entry S1735

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