Dealing with microbial contaminants in plant tissue and cell culture: hazard analysis and critical control points

Abstract

Microbial contamination is the most important reason for losses in both scientific and commercial micropropagation systems. In most laboratories losses averages between 3 and 15% of plants at every subculture [33]. Microbial contaminants can be introduced both with the explants used to initiate plant tissue cultures and at every stage of the tissue culture process in the laboratory [3, 4, 33]. However, it is often difficult to determine the exact source or sources of contamination from a visible assessment of the contaminated cultures. As in other industries which produce ‘aseptic’ or contamination-free products (such as the food or pharmaceutical industries), plant tissue culture laboratories require some form of ‘microbiological production control’ in order to monitor all possible sources of contamination continuously, with a view to detecting and preventing contamination at source.