How to decontaminate adherent cells with gentamicin - (Apr/25/2012 )

Hi dear all,

Recently, I got caught with contamination with my adherent fibroblastic cells with bacteria. I have known that people are using a broader spectrum of antibiotics eg gentamicin at 50ug/ml to treat contaminated cells. Is there anyone there got experience doing this?

Can I know the protocol how to decontaminate adherent cells with the media added with gentamicin?

Thanks a lot really need your help

Many many thanks

Unless your cells are really really precious, don't decontaminate them, just get/make some new ones. If you do decide to go ahead with decontamination, you will need to characterize the cells after the treatment to ensure that they have not changed in any fashion from the infection and/or the antibiotics. Use of antibiotics can cause cryptic infections that will play havoc with your experiments.

For decontamination, Wash cells in medium or PBS, use your regular medium, add the antibiotics and replace with fresh antibiotic medium each day.

+1 for bob1's answer