BIOL-2026EL Study Guide - Final Guide: Bacterial Growth, Optical Microscope, Agar Plate
1 Feb 2021
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You must always work aseptically when handling bacterial cultures. You must not contaminate yourself, your neighbour/partner, your personal items, or the cultures with extraneous organisms. Contamination of a culture will give false results. Environmental organisms or organisms of low pathogenic potential will be used in this exercise. Microscopic examination of microorganisms provides important information about their morphology, but in order to study their biological characteristics one must observe them in culture. A microbial culture medium (plural, media) contains suitable nutrients, such as carbohydrates, proteins, minerals, vitamins, and moisture, in the appropriate composition for the successful growth of the microorganism. The culture medium is prepared as either a broth (liquid medium), or agar (solid medium). Agar is a non- nutrient solidifying agent extracted from seaweed. The agar medium can be prepared in a test tube as an agar deep (a solid column, sometimes referred to as an agar butt) or agar slant.
