- 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.
Was this post helpful?
Let us know if you liked the post. That’s the only way we can improve.