In Vitro Studies

It is always a good practice to check your cell lines on a regular basis for Mycoplasma contamination. Mycoplasma contamination could be devastating to a cell culture facility and could result in heavy costs and wasted time if not detected early. At Clongen Laboratories, we offer several ways to test cell lines (or any sample source) for the presence of Mycoplasma, Ureaplasma and Acholeplasma contamination. One of our assays is a Cell-Based Assay where the test material (cell line or other) is inoculated onto a Vero cell monolayer known to be negative for the presence of Mycoplasma, incubated for a few days, fixed and stained with e Hoechst stain (DNA fluorochrome 33258). This fluorescence pattern of DNA in the cytoplasm of indicator cells indicates the infection status of the cells. Our laboratory scientists have many years of experience in evaluating microscopic fluorescence patterns and the assay is fairly sensitive (can detect 75-150 Mycoplasmas per ml). There are rare occasions where lysed cells or artifacts in the tested material can produce a false positive readout. We recommend a confirmatory assay for positive cultures other than the cell-based assay.