Literature overview cell culture contamination

On this page, we are collecting links to interesting papers and publication about cell culture contaminations such as bacteria, mycooplasma, yeast, funghi etc. This list is continously growing. A good overview article is this one:

Cell culture contamination: an overview.

Langdon SP.: Methods Mol Med 2004;88:309-17. Review

Articles about bacterial contamination in cell culture

Bacterial contaminations are found in all areas of cell culture. In research labs at universities and companies but also in industrial production facilities using cells in their processes or the now growing field of clinical reasearch aiming at the devleopment of advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMP) or tissue engineered products (TEMP, TEP). In the following parts, we have tried to list papers sorted by the field of application.

Bacteria in clinical samples

Risk factors for microbial contamination of peripheral blood stem cell products. Donmez A, Aydemir S, Arik B, Tunger A, Cilli F, Orman M, Tombuloglu M.: Transfusion 2012 Apr;52(4):777-81. 5.9% of prepared products were found contaminated 3.6% of thawed products were found contaminated 20% of patients that received a contaminated product suffered from infection of detected contaminant-species post-implantation 35% of patients that received a contaminated product suffered from infection of other than detected contaminant-species post-implantation besides others, the number of handling steps proved to be a risk-factor for contamination

Limiting and detecting bacterial contamination of apheresis platelets: inlet-line diversion and increased culture volume improve component safety.

Eder AF, Kennedy JM, Dy BA, Notari EP, Skeate R, Bachowski G, Mair DC, Webb JS, Wagner SJ, Dodd RY, Benjamin RJ (American Red Cross Regional Blood Centers): Transfusion 2009 Aug;49(8):1554-63.

• contamination safety was compared after changing preparation procedure and increasing test-sample volumes
• in part, contaminants found belonged to skin-flora
• before changes, 25.9% of samples were found contamination-positive
• after changes, this was reduced to 14% contamination-positive cultures
• doubling the sample culture volume increased safety by 54%

Evaluation of an automated culture system for detecting bacterial contamination of platelets: an analysis with 15 contaminating organisms.

Brecher ME, Means N, Jere CS, Heath D, Rothenberg S, Stutzman LC.: Transfusion 2001 Apr;41(4):477-82.

• 24h cultivation time seems necessary for safe detection