Curing Mycoplasma Infected Culture

  • Mycoplasma contaminated culture can either be discarded or be cured.
  • The best approach is to discard the culture because:
    • It can be a source of spreading of mycoplasma infection to other cell cultures.
    • Mycoplasma can induce loss of cell properties and sometimes permanent changes such as aneuploidy. Therefore cured cells may not behave similar to the parental cell line.
    • Curing procedures are laborious and time-consuming and are not 100% efficient.
  • However, curing is the only option for those valuable and rare cultures that can not  easily be obtained or generated.
  • There are several methods available to cure mycoplasma infected cells. The most popular methods are treating the infected cells with a combination of antibiotics/chemical compounds. However, these methods are also have drawbacks such as:
    • Antibiotics can be cytotoxic and genotoxic at higher concentration. 
    • Since mycoplasma can penetrate cell membranes and are present within the cells, effective concentration to kill them may not be sufficient. 
    • Mycoplasma can develop resistance.
  • Several suppliers provide kits based on antibiotics and they claim very good success.

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