Good morning,
I am working in a laboratory where we do cell culture, but lately we have been having problems with aspergillus contamination. We have tryed many times cleaning the incubator with alcohol and bleach, but it doesn't seem to be enough. We have also been suggested to use benzal but we are not sure about which reagent it is, there are different reagents with that name.
What can we do to stop getting aspergillus in our flasks?
Thanks
Never (really never!) use formaldehyde for sterilizing in cell culture labs. As Sebastian wrote, this is not a good idea. I think, you checked and disinfected all standard lab equipment including water bath and pipettes. I guess you are also using new media and supplement stocks? So I assume contaminated filters in sterile hood are causing repeated contamination. Or maybe your lab coat is source of contamination?
Hi Adolfo,
You have got very good suggestions above. On top of these, you might also add Fungizone to your growth media, but bear in mind that some cell lines are sensitive to this antifungal. Nevertheless, it seems that your problem might be due to material and/or equipment contaminated with fungi, like hood, incubator, pipettes, etc., or even the airflow in the room, and in this case Fungizone might mask the contamination instead of eliminating it.
Hope you solve the problem soon.
Best,
Jonas
Amphotericin B (Fungizone, Mysteclin-F) is good (please see file; JCB Fucoidan transport).
When biotin concentration is increased to 20 μM in order to obtain the good growth for Caco-2 cells, the infection by fungi becomes very frequent. Therefore, I must have to add Amphotericin B. Amphotericin B seems to be safe drug on the active transport assay.
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