microbial contaminant in plant tissue culture...?! - (Sep/03/2007 )

Hello every body...

I will like to kow how to identify the type of contaminant in plant tissue culture....e.g. wether it is contamination of bacteria or fungi..etc also if you can provide me with the common causes of contamination i will be very thankfull to you...

Thanks in advance..

You can always check it under a microscope. You may be able to tell fungi and bacteria apart through their morphology (at least in some cases). If you're not sure on what the contaminants are just ask for someone who works with bacteria and/or fungi for some help.

Contaminations can come from anywhere... Reagents/medium/lab material not properly sterilized, plant material contaminated from the start, bad antibiotics (if that could be the case...), working mistakes when working in the flow chamber, contaminated incubation chamber, etc...

But, even if everything is being done properly, there is always the chance that contaminations will appear. Here in the lab there are some people with lots of experience in tissue culture, but even so they get a couple of contaminations every once in a while.

Try always to work with a good amount of plant material (in different plates/flasks), so that if part of it gets contaminated, the others won't. And of course, be sure you're not making any mistakes under the flow chamber: a passing of the arm over an open medium bottle, an interruption of the air flow, and stuff like that, will increase the likelyhood of contaminations many fold.