Decontamination of mycoplasma-contaminated Orientia tsutsugamushi strains by repeating passages through cell cultures with antibiotics

摘要

BackgroundMycoplasmas-contamination of Orientia tsutsugamushi, one of the obligated intracellular bacteria, is a very serious problem in in vitro studies using cell cultures because mycoplasmas have significant influence on the results of scientific studies. Only a recommended decontamination method is to passage the contaminated O. tsutsugamushi strains through mice to eliminate only mycoplasmas under influence of their immunity. However, this method sometimes does not work especially for low virulent strains of O. tsutsugamushi which are difficult to propagate in mice. In this study, we tried to eliminate mycoplasmas contaminants from both high virulent and low virulent strains of the contaminated O. tsutsugamushi by repeating passage through cell cultures with antibiotics in vitro.