Everything about Growth Medium totally explained
A
growth medium or
culture medium is a liquid or gel designed to support the growth of
microorganisms or
cells. There are different types of media for growing different types of cells.
There are two major types of growth media: those used for
cell culture, which use specific cell types derived from plants or animals, and
microbiological culture, which are used for growing microorganisms, such as
bacteria or
yeast. The most common growth media for microorganisms are
nutrient broths and
agar plates; specialized media are sometimes required for microorganism and cell culture growth. In the case of animal cells, this difficulty is often addressed by the addition of
blood serum to the medium. In the case of microorganisms, there are no such limitations, as they're often
unicellular organisms. One other major difference is that animal cells in culture are often grown on a flat surface to which they attach, and the medium is provided in a liquid form, which covers the cells. In contrast, bacteria such as
Escherichia coli may be grown on solid media or in liquid media.
An important distinction between growth media types is that of
defined versus
undefined media. This type of media uses the biochemical characteristics of a microorganism growing in the presence of specific nutrients or indicators (such as
neutral red,
phenol red,
eosin y, or
methylene blue) added to the medium to visibly indicate the defining characteristics of a microorganism. This type of media is used for the detection of microorganisms and by molecular biologists to detect
recombinant strains of bacteria.
Examples of differential media include:
Eosin methylene blue (EMB), which is differential for lactose and sucrose fermentation
MacConkey (MCK), which is differential for lactose fermentation
Mannitol Salt Agar (MSA), which is differential for mannitol fermentation
X-gal plates, which are differential for lac operon mutants
Transport media
These are used for the temporary storage of specimens being transported to the laboratory for cultivation. Such media ideally maintain the viability of all organisms in the specimen without altering their concentration. Transport media typically contain only buffers and salt. The lack of carbon, nitrogen, and organic growth factors prevents microbial multiplication. Transport media used in the isolation of anaerobes must be free of molecular oxygen.
Example :stuart transport medium.
Enriched media
Enriched media contain the nutrients required to support the growth of a wide variety of organisms, including some of the more fastidious ones. They are commonly used to harvest as many different types of microbes as are present in the specimen. Blood agar is an enriched medium in which nutritionally rich whole blood supplements the basic nutrients. Chocolate agar is enriched with heat-treated blood (40-45°C), which turns brown and gives the medium the color for which it's named.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Growth Medium'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://growth_medium.totallyexplained.com">Growth medium Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
