Antimicrobial agent

[aftabac]

Hi
what are the best antimicrobial agent that have a braod specturm activity against all types of microbes (bacteria, viruses, yeast, protozoa and fungi) and used in vitro to kill all these types of microbes.



aftab

[admin]

Dear Aftab,

in our laboratory we use streptomycin / penicilin as a general antibiotic / antimycotic to prevent the growth of fungi and bacteria in our tissue culture...

however, you also mention viruses and protozoa... I am not sure right now which agents can be used safetly in vitro in experiments for all these...
ill get back to you or someone else may have ideas on this...

[kiki06]

Yes I also use penn. strep. for tissue culture. I have no idea though about viruses and other organisms...

even mycoplasma are very difficult to kill.

[renzhou9]

hi.
i don't think there is catholicon that can prevent all the microbe infection in vitro.
bacteria infection can be prevented by using antibio,but most viruses have no sensitive drug currently.

[aftabac]

Hi
yes there is no specific antiviral compund that are used in routine in tissue culture, we can use antibiotics for bacteria and antimycotics for fungus and yeast, but for viral we most often use nucleotide analogue that get into the viral genome and result in such a mutation that viral cant replicate. in addition there are some physical treatment for the virus, just as we use heat to kill viurs in Fetal bovine serum or alkali treatment at surface to make the virus replication deficient.
regards
aftab