Abstract
Fungal contamination is a major problem in cell culture, and the antifungal compounds currently in use can affect cultured cells. Echinocandins are antifungal drugs that inhibit fungal cell wall synthesis by targeting an enzyme that has no counterpart in mammalian cells. We evaluated whether the echinocandin caspofungin affected the growth or morphology of six murine cell lines (a macrophage-like cell line (J774.16) and five hybridoma lines), or primary human endothelial cells. The antifungal did not influence cellular characteristics at concentrations less than 512 µg/ml, while effectively reducing the incidence of fungal contamination. Also, caspofungin did not affect the production of antibody by hybridoma cells, or alter the cytokine production of J774.16 cells, although modest increases in IL-4 and IFN-γ occurred upon LPS stimulation. Hence, echinocandins appear to be relatively non-toxic, and protect against fungal contamination in cell culture.
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Acknowledgments
AC is supported in part by NIH GM-071421, AI033142, AI033774, AI052733, and HL059842. JDN is supported in part by NIH AI52733 and AI056070-01A2, a Wyeth Vaccine Young Investigator Research Award from the Infectious Disease Society of America and the Center for AIDS Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center (NIH AI-51519). LRM is supported by Molecular Pathogenesis Training Grant. We thank Eliseo Eugenin for providing us with the human endothelial cells.
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Martinez, L.R., Ntiamoah, P., Casadevall, A. et al. Caspofungin reduces the incidence of fungal contamination in cell culture. Mycopathologia 164, 279–286 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11046-007-9063-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11046-007-9063-2