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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Oct 4.
Published in final edited form as: ALTEX. 2013;30(3):275–291. doi: 10.14573/altex.2013.3.275

Tab. 6. Effects of mycoplasma contaminations on cell cultures.

  • Cell death and total culture degeneration and loss; increased sensitivity to apoptosis

  • Alteration of cellular morphology

  • Alteration of proliferation characteristics (growth, viability)

  • Chromosomal aberrations (numerical and structural alterations); DNA fragmentation due to mycoplasma nucleases

  • Alteration of cellular metabolism: Inhibition of cell metabolism; altered levels of protein, RNA and DNA synthesis with change of gene expression patterns

  • Changes in cell membrane antigenicity (surface antigen and receptor expression)

  • Interference with various biochemical and biological assays: Increase (or decrease) of virus propagation; reduction of transfection efficiencies; induction (or inhibition) of lymphocyte activation; induction (or suppression) of cytokine expression; influence on signal transduction; promotion of cellular transformation

  • Specific effects on hybridomas: Inhibition of cell fusion; influence on selection of fusion products; interference in screening of monoclonal antibody reactivity; monoclonal antibody against mycoplasma instead of target antigen; reduced yield of monoclonal antibody; conservation of hybridoma

The table was combined from (Nikfarjam and Farzaneh, 2012) and (Drexler and Uphoff, 2002).