Cell culture contamination (do not know what it was) - (May/02/2009 )

Hello Friends!

Recently, I found out a weird contamination in my cell culture. On high magnification it had a round, black shapes that move either by fidgeting or crawling on the plate base or on my cell.

The most frightening is that I found out that this black dot could attached to my bacteria, and somehow destroy the cell membrane, enters the cell then come out through the other ends of the cell.

So, my question is did any of you experts had encounter the same situation? And how should I deal with this? Finally, can you suggest which are the possible sources of this contamination.

Have a nice day ^^

Thanks before

Is it really contamination? Cellular debris and other aggregates can form and appear similar to contamination as they move around by Brownian motion . If it is contamination you should be able to isolate and grow it and then return it to the original culture to see the same effect as you see now (see Koch's postulates).