Abstract 9: No Evidence of Mycoplasma or Ureaplasma Contamination of Cord Blood Units Collected from at Term Mothers

Abstract Introduction Pre-cryopreservation microbial culture testing in widely utilised throughout the international cord blood banking industry to provide an element of safety assurance. Cord blood unit (CBU) samples are typically subjected to manual growth-based culture techniques or automated microbial detection based on the colorimetric detection of CO2 (Ramirez-Arcos., 2015). However, these techniques do not allow detection of certain slow-growing intracellular microorganisms such as mycoplasma or ureaplasma species. Objectives The primary objective was to ascertain whether mycoplasma and ureaplasma contamination was present in banked cord blood units. Previous studies have noted the importance of atypical pathogens in cord samples and transplant recipients. For example, Ureaplasma urealyticum and/or Mycoplasma hominis were present in around 20% of cord blood cultures (Goldenberg et al., 2008). The severe nature of these infections has also been recently demonstrated in immunocompromised, especially in both adults and children with haematologic malignancies or hematopoietic stem cell or solid organ transplant (Smith et al., 2019). Methods Multiplex qPCR for Ureaplasma (U.Lyticum and U.Parvum) and Mycoplasma (M.Hominis and M.Genitalium) was employed for screening (Morris et al., 2020). DNA extractions were obtained from 200 whole cord blood units, which were not used clinically and hence stored at the NHS Cord Blood Bank, Filton, United Kingdom. The same screening tests were also applied to paired total human DNA extracts that were stored as residual material left over after unit associated HLA typing. Results No evidence of mycoplasma or ureaplasma contamination of banked CBUs was found. Discussion This study provides a reassuring lack of evidence that CBU’s at the NHS Cord Blood Bank are potentially contaminated with mycoplasma or ureaplasma. This is consistent with the finding that cord blood units are collected from babies born at or after 35 weeks, whereas most ureaplasma and mycoplasma infections have been linked to pre-term delivery. As a result, the banks adventitious agent testing mitigation strategies remain unchanged.