Evaluation of cells and biological reagents for adventitious agents using degenerate primer PCR and massively parallel sequencing.

•Model cell substrates and reagents were tested for adventitious agents with MPS and degenerate PCR.•No evidence of viable viruses were found in the cell lines, supporting the safety of their use.•We detected previously described endogenous viral sequences in model cell substrates.•Sequences of bovine viruses and porcine circovirus were detected in some reagents.•We show the potential of MPS in evaluating cell substrates and reagents for viral nucleic acids.