Bacteria are frequently found as contaminants in cell cultures. However, cell cultures sometimes lack visual signs of bacterial contamination, e.g. fast decoloration of the medium. Moreover, it has been demonstrated that standard antibiotics are mostly ineffective against resistant bacterial infection but have a strong impact on cell metabolism, growth and differentiation.

Frequent screening of cell cultures for bacterial contamination is therefore indispensable in order to get reliable results. Hence, PromoCell offers a PCR-based Bacteria Test Kit that has been developed for accurate and reliable in vitro diagnosis of 45 bacteria species, many of them usually found as contaminants in cell cultures (e.g. Actinomyces, Bacillus, Enterococcus, Escherichia, Fusobacterium, Klebsiella, Lactobacillus, Micrococcus, Mycobacterium, Pseudomonas, Porphyromonas, Prevotella, Salmonella, Serratia, Legionella, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, Peptostreptococcus, etc.). The kit provides a highly sensitive, easy and rapid method to detect bacterial infection in various in situ biological materials, including cell cultures. Detection requires as little as 12 bacteria genomes per sample volume. The protocol can be completed within 3.5 hours with a hands-on time of less than 40 minutes. The kit contains all necessary components for setting up a PCR including a positive control DNA as well as an internal control DNA to prove a successfully performed PCR run. The kit does not amplify eukaryotic DNA.