Know your enemy: Unexpected, pervasive and persistent viral and bacterial contamination of primary cell cultures.

ABSTRACT: In biomedical research, cell culture contamination is one of the main culprits of experimental failure. Contamination sources and concomitant remedies are numerous and challenging to manage. We herein describe two cases of uncommon contamination of cell cultures that we encountered, and the successful determination and eradication strategies. The first case describes the infection with human adenovirus C that originated from pharyngeal tonsils used for isolation of primary tonsillar epithelial cells. It is known that viral contamination of in vitro cell cultures can occur symptomless and is therefore difficult to identify. The contamination was pervasive and persistent, as it was widely spread in flow cabinets and apparatus, and has caused a serious delay to our research projects and the i

SUBMITTER: Niehues H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7496648 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature