So, my cell culture got uniquely contaminated. A little back story: I am running a project that requires me to stimulate immune cells from lung tissue with a specific protein, and incubate for 7 days.

The illustration below explains the rough idea and approach.

On the 5th day, I got a weird medium colour change contamination that shocked me. In fact, I called everyone in the lab to check it out.

As a good science student, I had to figure out why and what type of contamination caused the colour change from pink to blue-green. So, I hit the books. I found out it was caused by a pigment called pyocyanin produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa. It is a gram-negative, motile, rod-shaped bacterium. The bacterium is capable of both aerobic and anaerobic growth and causes serious infection in immunocompromised individuals. in certain conditions, it produces pyocyanin compound which acts as a virulence factor by promoting biofilm formation and reactive oxygen species (ROS).

I aim to prevent future occurrences by

• Wearing gloves all times.
• Disinfecting my working bench and water bath thoroughly.
• Washing my lab coat regularly (weekly )
• Avoid cross-contamination
• Make sure your FCS or proteins are heat-inactivated properly.

Have you experienced a setback in your lab work due to contamination? How did you overcome?