I work with drugs with anticancer activity, currently I am culturing A549 cells. Would it be ok for me to use ciprofloxacin as an antibiotic as it has chemotherapeutic activity? What should be the concentration that will prevent it interference with my drugs and at the same time will maintain its antibiotic effect?
Dear Saba,
in case that your antibiotic interferes with the experiment, you could leave it out in the actual experimental design, e.g. when seeding the cells into the multi-well-plates. Then you have a higher risk of contamination, but if you work in a clean way, not very often.
Good luck!
Christoph Leder
It's not a good idea to routinely culture your cells with any antibiotic. As long as you have good sterile technique, your cells will not become infected. Antibiotic use encourages sloppy work and may mask low level infections along with 'invisible' infections such as mycoplasma, and may of course lead to antibiotic-resistant contamination too.
Thank you for the reply. Amanda I am here talking about in case of mycoplasma contamination, if I want to use ciprofloxacin which is very effective against it, what should be the concentration. Christopher currently I am following the same strategy not including ciprofloxacin in my experimental plates. But its already known that this antibiotic has some cytostatic and cytotoxic effects (dose dependent) on A549 cells, in this case what would be the concentration which does not effect my results. If someone is already using it please suggest.
No. Any amount will be an interference, and regardless of its chemotherapeutic activities, it's not a good drug.
Why not mitomycin? Mitoxantrone? Epirubicin? Doxorubicin? Idarubicin? Daunorubicin? Bleomycin especially?
Either way, maintain a completely sterile environment, do not expose your cells to any bacterium, and they will not become infected whatsoever.
Please see the attached PDF document for further information. But, as I said earlier, no. Do not use ciprofloxacin. It's not nearly potent enough. It may be effective, but in vivo, not in vitro.
Thank you, and good luck.
-Aryl
P.S. I would like to add, additionally, certain cannabinoids have antibiotic effects--IN ADDITION TO--anticancer effects. You may want to look into that as well, all things considered, since it's far more humane and much safer.
And again, good luck.
http://www.bbe.or.kr/storage/journal/BBE/5_2/6804/articlefile/article.pdf
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