Mycoplasmas and cancer risk circa 1968
and Positive Psychology - our Spheres of Personal Control do not include the US Dept of Defense bioweapon creation. Which means, worrying about it won't solve anything.
This post has the text of a short paper about Mycoplasma contamination found in many continuous cell culture lines, in 1968. Mycoplasma infection and treatment has been a focus of two recent posts as the trending news stories about a mystery pneumonia may really be stubborn old Mycoplasma pneumoniae: Post one, post two, which is a greater risk in malnourished people and low vitamin A may specifically be a big risk factor.
Mycoplasma genitalium, mentioned in post two, is now fairly common among adults. As many as 1 in 100 people may have it present, but they may not all have symptoms of pelvic discomfort. It is associated with pelvic inflammatory disease in females and also can cause pain or urinary problems in males too. With the information about the GP-120 fusion site pomegranate peel/products would likely be a helpful treatment to use. See: What Is Mycoplasma Genitalium?, (WebMD).
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The excerpt is from a book of research papers: "1968 NCI Conf Cell_Cultures_for_Virus_VXN_Production.pdf" Available in the “Papers” file of Nick’s HIV-1 archive of historical research and and other documents or books.
HIV-1 history - Nick's Full Text Special Collection, http://u.pc.cd/IdJ7, link shared in an IPAK-EDU Director’s Webinar presented on 12/11/2023.
Mycoplasma and Cell Cultures
Michael F. llARILE, Section on Mycoplasma, Laboritory of Bacterial Products, Division of Biologics Standards,1 Bethesda, Maryland 20014
CONTAMINATION of cell cultures with Mycoplasma was first reported by Robinson et al. (1) in 1956. Since then, Mycoplasma have been shown to be frequent contaminants of continuous cell cultures (2-20, 23i 2.5, 34, 3.5).
The incidence of Mycoplasma contamination of uninoculated primary and continuous cell cultures is summarized in table 1. In brief, primary cell culture lots were seldom contaminated, whereas continuous cell lines were frequently contaminated.
In our study (11, 12), primary cell culture lots prepared by the Division of Biologics Standards (DBS) Cell Culture Section were sent to the DBS Section on Mycoplasma for examination prior to first feed. During the past 7 years more than 900 primary rhesus and vervet monkey and rabbit kidney ce11 culture lots were examined. Only 7 isolations were ma.de ( table 1). This is less than 1 % contamination of the cell culture lots examined. Each cell lot was prepared from 2 kidneys of one animal. The Russian workers (14) reported 3-4% contamination.
[Table 1. Mycoplasma contaminntlon of uninoculated cell cultures]
On the other hand, we have examined 165 continuous cell lines obtained from more than 20 separate laboratories in the United States and Great Britain. There were 75 isolations, 45% contamination. In other surveys, Pollock et al,. (9) reported 57% contamination and the Russian investigators (16) reported 92% contamination. The lowest incidence of cont.amination in continuous cells was found in cells grown in small volumes and in antibiotic-free media and used for cell culture metabolic studies. The highest incidence of contamination was found in cells used to propagate microorganisms or in cells supplied by cell culture producers. These cells were grown under conditions that provide a high contamination risk. They were produced on a large scale-grown in large volumes and in large numbers of containers.
Contamination was found in continuous cells derived from all animal species tested, including human, monkey, bovine, dog, rabbit, hamster, mouse, rat, frog, and fish tissues.
The recovery and identification of Mycoplasma species isolated from uninoculated cell cultures are summarized in table 2. The initial contamination in continuous cells usually occurs during cell propagation. One source of contamination is probably the investigator and his environs, since many of the Mycoplasma recovered from animal cells are human oral and genital strains (2, 6, 11, 13, 17, 18, 21-23, 29, 30, 32).
[TABLE 2.-Identification of Mycoplasma contaminants isolated from uninoculated cell cultures]
Trypsin may be another source of contamination, since swine Mycoplasma are common contaminants (19, 24-28, 30) and trypsin is prepared from swine tissue. Nonetheless, our attempts to isolate Mycoplasma from small samples of several lots of trypsin were unsuccessful. Basal tissue culture media and sera supplements were not found to be major sources of contamination at the small volumes tested ( 11).
Contamination can be spread to cells by Mycoplasma-contaminated virus suspensions. The virus suspensions used in many research laboratories are commonly found to be contaminated with Mycoplasma.
In addition, contamination can be spread by aerosols produced with Mycoplasma-contaminated cell cultures which can cross-contaminate other cells prepared in close proximity ( 15).
In summary, we found both primary and continuous cell cultures subject to Mycoplasma contamination risk, and Mycoplasma to be common adventitious agents of cells. Continuous cells were found to be contaminated more frequently than primary cells. It would seem reasonable, therefore, to examine cell cultures used for vaccine production for the presence of Mycoplasma. Presently, a test for Mycoplasma is required for Measles and Poliomyelitis Virus Vaccine (Public Health Service Publication No. 437, § 73.74a) and the test is now under consideration as a requirement for all cell-culture produced virus vaccines.
References
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See page 201-204 in: NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE MONOGRAPH 29 December 1968, ‘Cell Cultures for Virus Vaccine Production’,
Available in the “Papers” file of Nick’s HIV-1 archive of historical research and and other documents or books.
HIV-1 history - Nick's Full Text Special Collection, http://u.pc.cd/IdJ7, link shared in an IPAK-EDU Director’s Webinar presented on 12/11/2023.
Also similar - patient samples collected in the San Francisco area were found to have a large rate of Mycoplasma species present. See: "1969 Stanford NIH 69-2053 Cell Culture and Mycoplasma Diagnostics.pdf" within the ‘Papers’ folder in Nick’s archive: http://u.pc.cd/IdJ7. They were trying to make human cells grow cancer from viral infection. Arrrgh. Bad science, bad, bad scientists.
Our zen moment from positivepsychology.com reminds us that we cannot control other people’s mistakes or their behavior. (Who we vote for has little influence too.)
Disclaimer: This information is being shared for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use and is not intended to provide individual health care guidance.