De-Contemination

[aftabac]

Hi
what is the best way to deconteminate the cell culture, it is becaue some time very important culture is conteminated and there is strong need to preserve and reuse it so then what measures should be adopted to reuse the conteminated culture.

regards
aftab

[admin]

Hey Aftab,
interesting question. The problem here is the cell line affected by the contamination?

In the case of mycoplasma contamination, usually everything is thrown out and new cell lines are thawed from the liquid nitrogen stores.
If you weren't careful enough to freeze aliquots of your cell line in the liquid nitrogen you may be in trouble. I think there are certain antibiotics that may be successful in removing some / all of the mycoplasma. Not sure about it.


In the case of bacteria, things are more easier. I have had some luck cleaning up small bacterial contaminations by subculturing the cells and washing them thoroughly with PBS and then adding relatively higher antibiotics concentrations for a few days. I then subculture the cells again, and check for contamination. Its best to let them re-establish for a week at least until you do experiments.
As I mentioned, its best to have backup aliquots in the liquid nitrogen because this is not the best practice as infections with bacteria, viruses, mycoplasma and yeast / molds can easily affect your experiments.

Some ideas. Cheers