Answer the following questions comprehensively.

1. A medical technologist was tasked to prepare blood agar plates (BAP), in

the middle of the preparation he noticed that there was no defibrinated
sheep’s blood available, instead, he used human blood as a substitute.
What will happen to the growth of bacteria when the medical technologist
needs to use the blood agar plates? As a medical technologist, what are
the considerations to follow when preparing a culture media?

If human blood is utilized to make blood agar plates, the bacterial isolation rates
will be low and there will be little or no hemolysis. Moreover, human blood may
contain antibodies, antitoxins, or antimicrobial that prevent growth of bacteria.
Unlike sheep blood, sheep blood has been the favored supply in Blood agar
because sheep RBCs are particularly vulnerable to hemolytic toxins generated
by bacterial cells, resulting in hemolytic zones around the colonies over time.
sheep blood is already standerdized with 5-10% concentration and prefferably
defibrinated blood is used in the making of media otherwise the
anticoagulants(Heparin, EDTA etc) also affect the hemolysis pattern on blood
agar.

When preparing a culture, a medical technologist should keep certain things in

mind. To avoid glass breakage, use caution while opening tubes with tight caps.
When handling culture medium or any scientific reagent, stain, fixative, or
chemical, care should be taken to prevent contact with the skin, eyes, or mucous
membranes. If contact happens, immediately flush with running water.

In accordance with this, issues caused by incorrect culture media preparation

include decreased growth or recovery rates, characteristic colonial morphology,
suppression of the target organism, inability to inhibit competing flora, and a
shorter shelf life of the produced medium.

As we all know, bacteria and other microorganisms employ culture media as a

synthetic nutritional substrate that simulates ideal development circumstances.
To get a representative microbial population from samples, the ideal growing
conditions that promote microbial flora must be provided. Furthermore, while
dealing with pathogen isolation, it is critical to create circumstances that aid in the
selection of low-abundance populations among thriving background species.
Starting with a high-quality medium that is ready to provide optimal support is
critical to success.

It is also vital to remember that basic bacteriology protocols must be followed.

The medical technician must mix and boil the agar medium to dissolve the agar
powder (if producing an agar medium rather than a broth medium) before
distributing it into tubes. After that, autoclave the tube media and the agar
medium for plate creation before pouring onto sterile petri dishes.
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nmni.2019.100622
Lagier, J. C., Edouard, S., Pagnier, I., Mediannikov, O., Drancourt, M., & Raoult, D.
(2015). Current and past strategies for bacterial culture in clinical
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