Embryotoxicity of micropore filters used in liquid sterilization.

Microfiltration is the usual method of sterilization of tissue culture media. The filtrates of eight commercial filters were tested for embryotoxicity using mouse embryo growth. Four of five disk filters tested showed embryo-toxicity in the first 5 ml of filtrate and the three larger-capacity filters showed embryotoxicity for up to the first 10 ml of filtrate. The ethylene oxide-sterilized filters appeared to give poorer results than the gamma-irradiated filters. The importance of discarding the initial filtrate or preflushing such filters before use is emphasized.