Jero Mathu Albert*, Neethu Hari, Hariharan Sreedharan and Ananthakrishnan Jayakumaran Nair
Mycoplasma is one of the most common contaminants in the mammalian cell culture. The contamination of the chronic myeloid leukemia cell line was tested with a different type of antibiotics (Cocktail of 10000 U/mL Penicillin and 10000 µg/mL Streptomycin, Ciprofloxacin, Gentamycin, Tetracycline). The bacteria responsible for this contamination are morphologically identified as mycoplasma. Even though there are several reports of treatment for mycoplasma, there is a lack of study on the contamination of K562 cell line by mycoplasma. In this context, the present study got its importance; here cocktails of streptomycin and penicillin antibiotics as well as individual gentamycin, tetracycline and ciprofloxacin were used to study the extent of contamination by mycoplasma. The observations of the present study show that the bacterial growth was higher in the cell-free medium as compared to that of the medium incubated with the cells. Furthermore, the study confirmed the enhanced antibacterial activity of gentamicin and tetracycline against contaminated K562 cell lines. At the same time, the physiological activity of the Mycoplasma bacteria was higher in the case of cells treated with the ciprofloxacin and the cocktail of penicillin and streptomycin.
