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CULTURE
MEDIA
Culture Media
 Liquid or solid substance - contains nutrients to support the growth,
and survival of microorganisms
Constituents of Culture Media
Water and Electrolytes
Peptone : Mixture of partially digested proteins - obtained from various
sources - heart muscle, casein or fibrin, or soya.
Agar : Used for solidifying the culture media
Solid Media : 1-2% Agar, Semi solid Media : 0.5%
Meat extract
Yeast extract
Blood and serum : Important components of enriched media; provide extra
nutrition to fastidious bacteria
Types of Culture Media
Based on consistency, culture media are grouped into:
 Liquid (or broth) media
 Semisolid media
 Solid media
Types of Culture Media
Conventional culture media:
Prepared from nutrients - aqueous extract of
meat, peptone.
 Simple/basal media
 Enriched media
 Enrichment broth
 Selective media
 Differential media
 Transport media
 Anaerobic media.
Automated culture media:
MaiMainly available for blood and sterile body
fluid culture.
Based on the growth detection, culture media are classified as
Simple/Basal Media
 Contain minimum ingredients that support the growth of non-fastidious
bacteria.
 Peptone water: Contains peptone (1%) + NaCl (0.5%) + water
 Nutrient broth: Peptone water + meat extract (1%).
 Nutrient agar: Nutrient broth + 2% agar
 Semisolid medium: Concentration of agar - reduced to 0.2–0.5 %.
Uses of Basal Media
Testing the non-fastidiousness of bacteria.
Serve as base for the preparation of many other media.
Performing the biochemical tests, such as oxidase, catalase, etc.
Study the colony morphology
Pigment demonstration.
Enriched Media
 To Basal Media Substances such as blood, serum or Egg are added
 Used to grow bacteria which require extra nutrients
 Eg : Blood Agar, Chocolate Agar
Indole Biochemical test Blood Agar Chocolate Aagar
Enriched Media (Cont..)
Blood agar
Prepared by adding 5-10% of sheep blood to the molten nutrient agar at
45°C.
Tests the hemolytic property of the bacteria, which may be either-
i) partial or α (green) hemolysis and ii) complete or β hemolysis
Enriched Media (Cont..)
Chocolate agar:
Heated blood agar, prepared by adding 5 -10% of
sheep blood to the molten nutrient agar at 70°C
Supports certain highly fastidious bacteria -
Haemophilus influenzae that does not grow on blood
agar
Enrichment Broth
Liquid media added with inhibitory agents which selectively allow certain
organism to grow and inhibit others.
Important for isolation of pathogens from clinical specimens which also
contain normal flora (e.g. stool and sputum specimen).
Examples :
Tetrathionate broth—Used for Salmonella Typhi
Selenite F broth—Used for Shigella
Selective Media
Solid media containing inhibitory substances - inhibit the normal flora
present in the specimen and allow the pathogens to grow
Example :
Lowenstein Jensen (LJ) medium : Mycobacterium tuberculosis
DCA (Deoxycholate Citrate Agar) : Salmonella and Shigella from stool
Selective Media
Lowenstein–Jensen
medium
Lowenstein–Jensen medium
Transport Media
Used for the transport of the clinical specimens suspected to contain delicate
organism or when delay is expected while transporting the specimens from the
site of collection to the laboratory
Bacteria do not multiply in the transport media - they only remain viable.
Example
Alkaline peptone water for Vibrio cholerae
Amies medium, Stuart’s medium for Neisseria
Differential Media
Differentiate between two groups of bacteria - by using an indicator
Example
MacConkey agar : Differentiates organisms into LF (pink colonies, e.g.
Escherichia coli) and NLF or (colorless colonies, e.g. Shigella).
Anaerobic Culture Media
The Anaerobic media contain reducing substances which take up oxygen
and create lower redox potential - permit the growth of obligate anaerobes,
such as Clostridium
Robertson’s cooked meat (RCM) broth
Blood Culture Media
Recovery of bacteria from blood is difficult - they are usually present in
lesser quantity and many of the blood pathogens are fastidious.
Therefore, enriched media - used for isolating microorganisms from
blood.
Available either as conventional or automated media
Conventional Blood Culture Media
Two types:
Monophasic medium: Contains brain–heart
infusion (BHI) broth.
Biphasic medium: Liquid phase containing
BHI broth and a solid agar slope made up of
BHI agar
Automated Blood Culture Techniques
Continuous automated monitoring: Blood culture
bottles - periodically monitored for the microbial
growth - every 10 minutes by the instrument.
BacT/ALERT 3D:
When bacteria multiply - produce CO2 - increases
the pH - changes the color of a blue-green sensor
present at the bottom of the bottle to yellow
CULTURE METHODS
CULTURE METHODS
Involve inoculating the specimen on to appropriate culture media,
followed by incubating the culture plates in appropriate conditions.
Bacteriological loop and straight wire B. Flaming the loop
(red hot)
Biosafety Cabinet (BSC)
It is an enclosed, ventilated laboratory work
station, used to protect the laboratory
personnel while working with potential
infectious clinical specimens.
Streak Culture
Liquid Culture
Used for culture of specimens - blood or body fluids
- inoculated by directly adding the specimen in to
the liquid medium or with the help of a syringe or
pipette.
Bacterial growth - detected by observing turbidity in
the medium. Some aerobic bacteria form surface
pellicles
Lawn or Carpet Culture
Uniform lawn of bacterial growth is obtained
by either swabbing or flooding with a
bacterial broth onto the culture plate.
Useful to carry out antimicrobial
susceptibility testing (AST) by disk diffusion
method.
Stroke Culture
Carried out on agar slopes or slants by
streaking the straight wire in a zigzag
fashion.
Used for biochemical test such as urease
test.
Stab Culture
Made by stabbing the semisolid agar butt by a
straight wire. It is
Used for motility testing using mannitol motility
medium.
Incubatory Conditions
Most pathogenic bacteria - aerobes or facultative
anaerobes - grow best at 37°C.
Inoculated culture plates - incubated at 37°C
aerobically for overnight in an incubator.
Incubator
Other Incubatory Conditions
For capnophilic bacteria: Candle jar is used
Inoculated media - placed inside a jar with a lighted
candle - burning candle reduces oxygen to a point
where the flame goes off.
Provides an atmosphere of approximately 3–5%
CO2 .
Useful for capnophilic bacteria - Brucella,
Streptococcus, pneumococcus and gonococcus
Anaerobic Culture Methods
Obligate anaerobic bacteria - grow only in the absence of oxygen.
Anaerobic culture methods includes:
Evacuation and Replacement
Absorption of Oxygen by Chemical Methods
Anaerobic Glove box and Anaerobic Work Station
Reducing Agents
Evacuation and Replacement
Involves evacuation of the air from jar and replacement with inert gas like
hydrogen followed by removal of the residual oxygen by use of a catalyst.
It is
Carried out either by:
Manual method – using McIntosh and Filde’s anaerobic
Automated system (Anoxomat)
Evacuation and Replacement (Cont..)
Manual method- McIntosh and Filde’s anaerobic jar -
most popular method for creating anaerobiosis in the
past, now not in use.
Evacuation and Replacement (Cont..)
Automated system (Anoxomat): Automatically
evacuates air - replaces by hydrogen gas from a
cylinder.
Catalyst - sachet containing aluminum pellets coated
with palladium
Absorption of Oxygen by Chemical Methods
GasPak system
Traces of oxygen - removed by same catalyst
used for Anoxomat.
Reducing Agents
Oxygen in culture media - reduced by various reducing
agents - glucose, thioglycollate, cooked meat pieces,
cysteine and ascorbic acid.
Robertson cooked meat broth - most widely employed
anaerobic culture medium - uses chopped meat particles
(beef heart) as reducing agent
Colony Morphology
After overnight incubation - culture media are
removed from the incubator - examined under
bright illumination.
Hemolysis on Blood Agar
Partial or α hemolysis
Complete or β hemolysis
No hemolysis (γ hemolysis, a misnomer)
CULTURE IDENTIFICATION
Identification of bacteria from culture is made either by:
Conventional biochemical tests or
Automated identification systems.
Biochemical tests
Examples
catalase and oxidase tests
For gram-negative bacilli - Common biochemical tests done routinely –
‘ICUT’
Indole test
Citrate utilization test
Urea hydrolysis test
Triple sugar iron test (TSI).
Indole Citrate Urease
Catalase Test TSI Test Oxidase
test
Biochemical tests
For gram-positive cocci:
Coagulase test (for Staphylococcus aureus)
CAMP (Christie-Atkins-Munch-Petersen) test - group B Streptococcus.
Bile esculin hydrolysis test (for Enterococcus)
Inulin fermentation (for pneumococcus)
Bile solubility test (for pneumococcus)
Coagulase test CAMP test
Bile Solubility Test BEA test
Automated Systems for Bacterial Identification
MALDI–TOF
VITEK 2
Phoenix
ANTIMICROBIAL
SUSCEPTIBILITY
TEST
Antimicrobial Susceptibility Test
Bacteria exhibit great strain variations in susceptibility to antimicrobial
agents - AST plays a vital role to guide the clinician for tailoring the
empirical antibiotic therapy to pathogen-directed therapy.
Performed only for pathogenic bacteria isolated from the specimen, and
not for the commensal bacteria.
Classified into phenotypic and genotypic methods.
Antimicrobial Susceptibility Test (Cont..)
Phenotypic methods -
Disk Diffusion Method- e.g. Kirby–Bauer’s disk diffusion (DD) test
Dilution tests: Broth Dilution and agar dilution Method
Epsilometer or E-test
Automated AST-e.g. Vitek, Phoenix and Microscan systems
Genotypic methods -
PCR detecting drug resistant genes
Kirby–Bauer’s disk diffusion Method
Antibiotic disks - impregnated on to a suitable medium lawn cultured with
the test isolate.
Mueller–Hinton agar (MHA) - standard medium used for AST
Procedure
Directly suspending the colony in the normal saline or
Inoculating into suitable broth and incubating at 37°C for 2 hours
AST Procedure (Cont..)
Lawn culture:
Broth - inoculated on to the medium by spreading with sterile swabs
Disks impregnation:
Disks - placed atleast 24 mm (center to center) apart on the MHA plate.
Maximum up to 6 disks can be applied on a 100 mm plate.
Interpretation
Susceptibility to the drug - determined by the zone of inhibition of
bacterial growth around the disk - measured by Vernier caliper.
Dilution Tests
Antimicrobial agent - serially diluted - each dilution is tested with the test
organism for ASTand the MIC is calculated.
MIC (minimum inhibitory concentration) - lowest concentration of an
antimicrobial agent that will inhibit the visible growth of microorganism
after overnight incubation.
Dilution Tests (Cont..)
Depending upon whether the dilutions of the antimicrobial agent are
made in agar or broth, there are two types of dilution tests.
Broth Dilution Method
Agar Dilution Method
Broth Dilution Method
Two types:
Macro broth dilution (performed in tubes)
Micro broth dilution (performed in microtiter plate).
Broth Dilution Method (Cont..)
Serial dilutions of the antimicrobial agent in Mueller Hinton broth are
taken in tubes - each tube is inoculated with a fixed amount of suspension
of the test organism.
MIC - determined by - lowest concentration of the drug at which there is
no visible growth, i.e. broth appears clear
Broth Dilution Method (Cont..)
Broth Dilution Method (Cont..)
Minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) - obtained by subculturing
from each tube (showing no growth) onto a nutrient agar plate without any
antimicrobial agent.
Tube containing the lowest concentration of the drug that fails to show
growth, on subculture, is the MBC of the drug for that test strain.
Agar Dilution Method
Serial dilutions of the drug - prepared in molten agar and poured into petri
dishes.
Test strain is spot inoculated.
Advantage:
Several strains can be tested at the same time by using the same plate
Directly measures the MBC
Epsilometer or E-test
Uses an absorbent strip containing predefined
gradient (serial dilution) of antibiotic concentration
immobilized along its length.
Applied to a lawn inoculum of a bacterium.
Antibiotic concentration at which the ellipse edge
intersects the strip -MIC value.
Automated Antimicrobial Susceptibility Tests
VITEK 2 identification and antimicrobial sensitivity system
Phoenix System (Becton Dickinson)
Micro Scan Walk Away system.
Molecular Methods (Detecting Drug-resistant Genes)
PCR
RT-PCR
GeneXpert
SEROLOGY
SEROLOGY
Detection of either antigen or antibody in the serum of the patient, by
various immunological assays such as—
Precipitation
Agglutination
ELISA
Rapid test.
MOLECULAR METHODS for Lab Diagnosis
PCR
RT-PCR
GeneXpert
CB-NAAT
KEY POINTS
 Agar Used for preparation of Solid media-2%
 Agar Used for preparation of semisolid media-0.5%
 Blood Agar is prepared aby adding 5-10% of blood to Basal Media
 β hemolysis is seen Observed in Blood Agar
 Chocolate agar is prepared by adding blood to Molten nutrient Agar at 70°C
 Enrichment Broth is Liquid media added with inhibitory agents which
selectively allow certain organism to grow and inhibit others
 Selective Media is a Solid Media added with inhibitory agents which
selectively allow certain organism to grow and inhibit others
 Differential Media : Differentiate between two groups of bacteria - by using an
indicator
 Example for Differential Media : MacConkey agar
 Example for Anaerobic Culture Media : Robertson’s cooked meat (RCM) broth
 Biphasic medium [Bottle containing Brain Heart Infusion (BHI) broth & Agar slant
] is used for Blood culture
 BacT/ALERT 3D is an Automated Blood culture System
 Streak Culture is a common method used to isolate bacteria from agar medium
 Lawn culture method used for Antimicrobial sensitivity testing
 Media used for Antimicrobial sensitivity testing is Mueller Hinton Agar
 Most pathogenic bacteria - aerobes or facultative anaerobes - grow best at 37°C
 Anaerobic culture media & methods are : McIntosh and Filde’s jar, Anoxomat
method, Gas pack system method, RCM broth
 Commonly used Anaerobic culture broth is RCM broth (Robertson cooked meat
broth )
 The methods used for Antimicrobial Suscpetibility testing are : Kirby bauer
disk diffusion test, Broth dilution methos, Agar dilution method, Epilometer test
(E-test )
What is the percentage of agar used for the preparation of solid
media?
1) 0.1%
2) 30 %
3) 2 %
4) 50 %
What percentage of blood is typically added to basal media to prepare blood
agar?
1) 0 %
2) 1 %
3) 5-10%
4) 30 %
How is chocolate agar prepared?
1) By adding chocolate chips to molten nutrient agar at 37°C
2) By adding blood to molten nutrient agar at 10°C
3) By adding blood to molten nutrient agar at 70°C
4) By adding cocoa powder to molten nutrient agar at 20°C
What is selective media?
1) Solid media with inhibitory agents
2) Liquid media with inhibitory agents
3) Solid media with growth-promoting agents
4) Liquid media with growth-promoting agents
Which of the following is an example of a commonly used differential media?
1.Nutrient agar
2.Blood agar
3.MacConkey agar
4.Chocolate agar
What is the purpose of using a biphasic medium?
1.To culture viruses
2.To culture fungi
3.To culture bacteria in anaerobic conditions
4.To culture bacteria for blood culture