Moina : a model system

Yeah @Sjuday2527 that day too I had seen those small worm kind of thing…

@Spandan_b , @Jyotiraditya and I had tried to observe it via a microscope but we failed to locate it…

Maybe you have some video of that you had shown it to me on Tuesday…

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CUBE Elphinstone College
Moina Group

Short term Objective: To have a pure Moina culture without rotifers or any other organisms (Monoxenic culture - a culture containing one species growing in the presence of the other)

Long term objective: To study histone remodeling in moina via Haemoglobin protein expression through epigenetics

Immediate Objective: To culture moinas

On 9 September 2019, bottles D1, D2(replica), S1, M1(replica) were prepared by taking 250ml DC water in 4 bottles + 5 moinas in each + 1 drop in D1, D2 and 4 drops in S1 and M1.

Today’s observations:
D1 ~ 5 moinas
D2 ~ 10 moinas
M1 ~ 5 moinas
S1 ~ 20 moinas

Maybe the Moinas transferred in bottles D1 and M1 were small, so they would take time to reproduce.

Friday’s expectations:
D1 ~ 10 moinas
D2 ~ 20 moinas
M1 ~ 10 moinas
S1 ~ 30 moinas

These bottles are kept in our college lab.

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Why do you want to separate moina with other organisms ? How is your long term objective not gonna work out to happen with rotifers and other organisms in your moina cultures? Do you think there can be any change between a bottle having moina with other organisms and another bottle having just moina ? What do you think? @drishtantmkawale

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Our long term objective i.e. to study histone remodelling in moina via epigenetics.
So, we came to know that there are many factors by which the gene expression can get disturbed you can say. For eg. Internal and External environment, transcriptional memory and sequence memory, etc.
I got to know this from @bivasnag

As I said, it may affect their gene expression.

References : https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.est.5b00833#

Epigenetics and lifestyle : Epigenetics and lifestyle - PMC

rspb.1948.0006.pdf (3.9 MB)

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So by a pure Moina culture, don’t you mean an axenic culture? [ axenic describes the state of a culture in which only a single species, variety, or strain of organism is present and entirely free of all other contaminating organisms.] And if you’re intending to create an axenic culture, how do you plan on isolating the moina? What is the method to do this?

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No, if we are feeding the moinas with milk which contains bacteria, then bacteria (although its food) would come under the contaminating organisms and our culture would no longer be axenic and thus we will get a Monoxenic culture until we keep changing the water to avoid the growth of rotifers which feed on the bacteria as well as dead moinas.

I’ve just found a paper regarding the general method for the monoxenic cultivation of Daphnidae although I’ve not read it.

murphy1970.pdf (517.4 KB)

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Good explanation :+1: :sparkles:

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What will happen if everything - bottle, water, handling, milk etc - is made sterile first. Will moina survive?

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Yes, the moinas will survive as after some time after adding milk (although sterilised or pasteurised, the milk is not free from bacterial lipases and proteinases), the bacteria present in the environment will react with these bacterial lipases and produce other bacterias which will act as a food for moinas. Sterilisation does not inactivate all enzymes present in the milk although molds and yeasts are readily killed, we are only concerned about bacteria.

The spore –forming bacteria in raw milk, which are highly heat-resistant, survive the sterilization temperature-time employed in the dairy and ultimately lead to the deterioration of sterilized milk.

Reference: https://www.dairyknowledge.in/article/sterilization

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CUBE Elphinstone College
Moina Group

Short term Objective: To have a pure Moina culture without rotifers or any other organisms (Monoxenic culture)

Long term objective: To study histone remodeling in moina via Haemoglobin protein expression through epigenetics

Immediate Objective: To culture moinas

On 9 September 2019, bottles D1, D2(replica), S1, M1(replica) were prepared by taking 250ml DC water in 4 bottles + 5 moinas in each + 1 drop in D1, D2 and 4 drops in S1 and M1.

Today’s observations:
D1 ~ 7 moinas
D2 ~ 15 moinas
M1 ~ No moinas
S1 ~ 35 moinas

The moinas in Bottle M1 died so I added 5 moinas from bottle S1, so now there are ~ 30 moinas in S1

Tomorrow’s expectations:
D1 ~ 10 moinas
D2 ~ 20 moinas
M1 ~ 5-7 moinas
S1 ~ 45 moinas

These bottles are kept in our college lab.

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CUBE Elphinstone College
Moina Group

Objective : To study the effect of distilled water on moinas.

Today 13 September 2019, we prepared 4 test tube A1, A2 (replica) , B1, B2 (replica) having Moinas in Distilled water.

Procedure:
We took 4 sterilized test tubes, added 10ml of Distilled Water in each test tube + 5 moinas in each test tube + 1:25 dilution of Milk ( 1 drop of milk + 25 drops of distilled water) in tube A1 and A2 only. The moinas in tube B1 and B2 were not fed with milk. Some moinas were gravid.

Tomorrow’s expectations:
5-10 Moinas in A1 and A2 as nutrition is being provided to them but we also feel that the bacteria/microorganisms present in the milk too will need nutrition and they may not survive.

No moinas in B1 and B2.

How to check for Distilled water?
A. We took a pH paper and dipped it in the distilled water which we had… the pH was matching to 7 which is the ideal pH of Distilled Water. Some references mention the pH to be slightly acidic because it absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere.

Reference: What is the pH of Distilled Water? Alkaline or Acidic? – WaterDistillers.com

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CUBE Elphinstone College
Moina Group

Objective : To culture moinas in a Tank.

Today 13 September 2019, we prepared a 6L tank of Moinas.

Procedure:
A big tank with ~ 10L volume was taken.
In that 6L DC Water + ~ 20 colourless moinas + 10 drops of milk (it’s just a rough volume as the objective is just to culture moinas).

Tomorrow’s expectations:
20-30 moinas.

This tank culture is kept in our College Lab

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CUBE Elphinstone College
Moina Group

Breaking news!!

The moinas in the four test A1, A2 (both with milk), B1 and B2 (both without milk) didn’t survive in Distilled Water whose pH was 7.


A1 (with milk)


A2 (with milk)


B1 (without milk)


B2 (without milk).

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CUBE Elphinstone College
Moina Group

Objective : To culture moinas in a Tank.

On 13 September 2019, we prepared a 6L tank of Moinas.

Procedure:
A big tank with ~ 10L volume was taken.
In that 6L DC Water + ~ 20 colourless moinas + 10 drops of milk (it’s just a rough volume as the objective is just to culture moinas). No specific calculations were done for adding 10 drops of milk.

Today’s observation: 60-70 colourless moinas

Monday’s expectations:
~100 - 120 colourless moinas

This tank culture is kept in our College Lab

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CUBE Elphinstone College
Moina Group

Short term Objective: To have a pure Moina culture without rotifers or any other organisms (Monoxenic culture)

Long term objective: To study histone remodeling in moina via Haemoglobin protein expression through epigenetics

Immediate Objective: To culture moinas

On 9 September 2019, bottles D1, D2(replica), S1, M1(replica) were prepared by taking 250ml DC water in 4 bottles + 5 moinas in each + 1 drop in D1, D2 and 4 drops in S1 and M1.

Today’s observations:
D1 ~ 5 moinas
D2 ~ 20 moinas
M1 ~ 5-7 moinas
S1 ~ 40-50 moinas

Monday’s expectations:
D1 ~ 10 moinas
D2 ~ 30 moinas
M1 ~ 10 -15 moinas
S1 ~ 60 moinas

These bottles are kept in our college lab

1 Like

CUBE Elphinstone College
Moina Group

Objective : To culture moinas in a Tank.

On 13 September 2019, we prepared a 6L tank of Moinas.

Procedure:
A big tank with ~ 10L volume was taken.
In that 6L DC Water + ~ 20 colourless moinas + 10 drops of milk (it’s just a rough volume as the objective is just to culture moinas so there is no specific calculation for adding 10 drops of milk).

Today’s observation: ~160 colourless moinas

Tomorrow’s expectations:
~ 200 moinas

This tank culture is kept in our College Lab

1 Like

CUBE Elphinstone College
Moina Group

Short term Objective: To have a pure Moina culture without rotifers or any other organisms (Monoxenic culture)

Long term objective: To study histone remodeling in moina via Haemoglobin protein expression through epigenetics

Immediate Objective: To culture moinas

On 9 September 2019, bottles D1, D2(replica), S1, M1(replica) were prepared by taking 250ml DC water in 4 bottles + 5 moinas in each + 1 drop in D1, D2 and 4 drops in S1 and M1.

Today’s observations:
D1 ~ 10 moinas
D2 ~ 30-40 moinas
M1 ~ 10 moinas
S1 ~ 60 moinas

Tomorrow’s expectations:
D1 ~ 15 moinas
D2 ~ 50 moinas
M1 ~ 20 moinas
S1 ~ 70-80 moinas

These bottles are kept in our college lab.

For tomorrow, we are planning to change the water of these cultures and will provide the same conditions as earlier.
The existing water would-be checked for rotifer growth i.e. we are going to look for clumps if any…

The moinas would be transferred to the beaker, new DC water would be added in the bottle (the bottle would be washed) and then moinas would be transferred by dropper

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@drishtantmkawale Why did moina not survive in Distilled water?
What is there in distilled water?
Why are you trying to culture moina in distilled water, what is the objective of this experiment?

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@drishtantmkawale What is the kinetics of reproduction of Moina in your Tank cultures?
What is your expectation of growth kinetics of Moina?
Can you plot an expected graph of No.of Moina in your cultures vs Days(Time), and compare it with your observations of each day from the day you started the cultures?

When is the peak numbers of moina? when is the peak collapsing?
Is there a pattern? What are the factors behind this?

Eagerly looking forward to…

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How are you going to change water devoid of moinas ? Can you also post a video on the same as how are you going to do or how to change water in moina tank so that everyone could easily understand how are you doing it and how the ideal method is…

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