Sensitive Detection of Cell Culture Mycoplasma Infection

The MycoScope™ Mycoplasma PCR detection kit from AMSBIO uses polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology to detect mycoplasma infections in less than 3 hours. Offering high-sensitivity detection, rapid results, and compatibility with existing PCR setups, this kit reduces the risk of contamination spread saving valuable time and resources.

As reported in the ISSCR standards report (2023) a sizeable proportion of cell cultures (up to >80%) are infected with mycoplasma. While contaminating mycoplasma may grow slowly without killing the cells, the infection affects both cell structure and function rendering any results obtained from infected cultures as unreliable. Testing for mycoplasma is a vital quality control measure used in many cell culture labs.

Though agar cultures as well as DNA fluorochrome staining methods were traditionally used for mycoplasma detection, PCR is rapidly becoming the preferred method of choice due to its high-sensitivity detection.

Evaluated for use with a wide variety of commercially available DNA polymerases, the extremely sensitive MycoScope™ Mycoplasma PCR detection kit can detect less than 5 mycoplasma genomes per microliter of sample. As the MycoScope™ kit primer set is specific to the 16S rRNA coding region in the mycoplasma genome, this allows detection of all mycoplasma species commonly encountered in cell culture.

The rapid detection kit also provides the option of direct testing of cell supernatants without initial DNA extraction to save time and effort. The distinct banding at 500bp on an agarose gel allows easy detection using the same MycoScope™ PCR primer set allowing you to run multiple samples at once. MycoScope™ kits are available in different convenient formats including 100 reaction and 50 reaction sizes.