Contamination is scary, especially when you have devoted countless hours on your cell cultures only to find unwanted biological contaminants in your research material. Moreover, contamination can negatively affect cell growth and overall health of your cell or plant cultures and has the potential to negatively impact the shared spaces of your laboratory as well.
Contamination may arise from many sources such as impurities in contaminated reagents, poor aseptic technique, and cross contamination by other cells. It is a good idea to test your cell lines or primary cultures prior to starting an experiment, and undergo routine analysis to detect potential contamination. Despite best efforts and rigorous protocols, biological contaminants can find their way into your cultures and can thrive in nutrient rich cell culture media. In plant tissue culture, there can be endogenous contamination derived from plant explants that emerges despite rigorous aseptic technique and plant sterilization methods.
The most common fungal contaminants are molds and yeasts. Fungi produce spores that are released and grow in culture media. Contamination from viruses can also arise and their small size makes it difficult to detect with the naked eye and remove from cultures and reagents. Detection for viral contamination is done via immunostaining, ELISAs, or PCR.
In general, antibiotics are generally not used routinely since this may encourage antibiotic resistant strains to develop leading to antimicrobial resistance (AMR). In addition, persistent low-level contamination can lead to full-scale contamination once the antimicrobial is removed from the media. However, short-term use of antibiotics can be effective. Please note that antimicrobial agents may be toxic to some cell lines, therefore a dose response curve will be needed to determine the level at which an antimicrobial becomes toxic in your system.
Another unwanted contaminant is Mycoplasma. Mycoplasma contamination is devastating when it appears, and it can even alter the cell morphology, physiology and metabolism, and can lead to inaccurate experimental conclusions. Many studies have shown that a high percentage of cell cultures are contaminated with this ubiquitous organism. Our Mycoplasma detection kits allows researchers to detect infections early on, thus preventing more widespread contamination, and avoid making incorrect observations based on cultures that may be hiding undetected infections. The kit has a high degree of sensitivity for over 300 Mycoplasma strains. Elimination products such as De-Plasma™ II contains five antimicrobial compounds has three separate anti-Mycoplasma targets for successful elimination efforts.
One example of a truly spooky pathogen is Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). In the laboratory, various antimicrobials are used against MRSA including antibiotics like Vancomycin, Daptomycin, Linezolid, Ceftaroline and Delafloxacin. If you are conducting susceptibility testing for MRSA or other pathogens, our free Antimicrobial Index is a good place to start. You can cross-reference literature-based susceptibility data with over 4000 antimicrobials, thus allowing for more informed and efficient use of antimicrobials. Our popular ReadyMade™ antimicrobial solutions are solution formats of our proven antimicrobial agents. Pesky pathogens be gone!
For cell culture contamination control agents click here.
For plant biology contamination control agent click here.