Cell Culture FAQ: What to do with a new cell line in your lab?

It is common practice to share cell lines with external laboratories and collaborators. But these cell lines might come with an incalculable contamination or misidentification risk. Therefore, it is highly recommended to verify quality and origin to obtain further reliable data with these cell lines. Consider the following procedure when adding a foreign cell line to your cell culture:

Quarantine the new cell line (separate incubators, biosafety cabinets or even cell culture laboratories depending on the individual laboratory equipment).
Quality tests for any microbial contaminants like bacteria, fungi, yeast, and mycoplasma.
Compare with the list of known misidentified cell lines using the ICLAC database.
Identity tests for cross-contamination or misidentification to verify the authenticity of the cell line.
Using your own tests to verify cell lines can save you valuable time, efforts and costs.