Our lab has had a recurring, but sporadic, problem with having our cultures show fungal hyphae in our ES and iPS lines. Since we've had multiple people working in different rooms and on different cell lines develop this contamination, we'd like to be able to identify the type of fungus that is infecting our cultures so that we can better pinpoint steps we need to take to avoid future contamination. We have given a sample to a researcher in the Microbiology department for identification, but it is growing so slowly that he has been unable to identify it yet by morphology. If morphological identification is not possible, we were hoping to find a PCR or similar kit/test that we could use. Below, I describe our standard protocols for preventing contamination, as many of the things we already do are frequently listed as suggestions to prevent contamination in similar posts. I have also attached a couple photos of the fungal hyphae in our cultures, as well as a spore found in the media. Thanks in advance for suggestions!

We autoclave and change the filters in our incubators approximately every 6 months. Cell culture hoods are UV sterilized daily during use (usually overnight, but for a minimum of 30 min). 70% ethanol is to clean equipment/supplies stored in the culture hoods daily before use and anything (media, gloved hands, etc) also gets cleaned with ethanol before going into the hood. All media is filtered through 0.2 um filters and include Gibco's Antibiotic/Antimitotic ( Amphotericin B, Penicillin, Streptomycin) when we start differentiating our cells. Additionally, we use sterile packaged, filtered micropipet tips and regularly change the filters for the Drummond Pipet-Aids.