Contamination examples Contamination is a common problem.
Contamination occurs frequently, and can be a serious threat to the integrity of sequence data.
The conclusions drawn from bad data will be misleading, and can cause fundamental misconceptions in the way we understand HIV biology. Contamination can happen in anyone's laboratory, and is not a sign of sloppy work. It is a fact of life with HIV culture, PCR amplification, and sequencing. We have selected a few datasets to illustrate the problems that can arise, and how they can be recognized. Protecting HIV databases.