Isolation and Detection of Mycoplasma pneumoniae from Cell Culture by Culture, PCR and Comparing Their Methods Sensitivity

10.30699/ijmm.13.3.153 Background and Aims: Mycoplasma pneumoniae is one of the species of mycoplasmas which could contaminate cell cultures. Identification of M. pneumoniae is significant because mycoplasmas could contaminate and have unsuitable effect on the cell cultures. Rapid detection of these contaminations is so important and it could be significant role in preventing and controlling of contamination in cell cultures. Materials and Methods: In this study, the isolation and detection of M. pneumoniae from 82 cell culture samples that were sent to the Mycoplasma Reference Laboratory using cell culture and PCR method were performed. M1F and M3R primers that have the ability to identify mycoplasma genus from the 16S rRNA gene were used. The P1 adhesin gene and MPF and MPR specific primers were used to initiate the PCR reaction to detect Mycoplasma pneumonia. Results: Of 82 samples, 31(37.8%) were positive and 51 (62.2%) were detected negative performing cell culture. Whereas, out of 82 samples, 48 (58.53%) were positive and 34 (41.47%) of the samples were negative using mycoplasma genus PCR as diagnostic method. M. pneumoniae was not detected from 82 samples in this study . Conclusion: The results of this study indicated that Mycoplasma pneumoniae is not a factor contributing to cell cultures in Iran. But PCR could be an alternative method instead of the culture because according to the results of this study, PCR has high accuracy, speed and it is cost-effective for detecting M. pneumoniae.