- Mycoplasma contamination is still a challenging problem in most cell culture laboratories.
- Due to their small size, they escape microscopic detection.
- Mycoplasma can affect cell culture in various ways including morphophonological changes, proliferation rate, cell physiology and metabolism, chromosome aberration, cell death etc.
- Unlike bacterial and yeast contamination which can easily be detected by microscopic investigation, detection of mycoplasma requires special procedures.
- Absence of cell wall makes them unaffected by commonly used cell culture antibiotics.
- Results obtained from mycoplasma infected cell culture are not conclusive and products from infected culture can not be used.
- Infected cell lines are the major source of mycoplasma contamination to other cell lines in laboratories. In addition, infected cell culture reagents such as serum, media etc can also be a source of mycoplasma contamination.
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