Chemical Content of Media

Media whose compositions are chemically defined are

termed synthetic.
Such media contain pure organic and inorganic
compounds that vary little from one source to another
and have a molecular content specified by means of an
exact formula.
Synthetic media come in many forms. Some media,
such as minimal media for fungi, contain nothing
more than a few essential compounds such as salts and
amino acids dissolved in water.
Others contain a variety of defined organic and
inorganic chemical
Complex, or nonsynthetic, media contain at least one
ingredient that is not chemically definable—not a simple,
pure compound and not representable by an exact
chemical formula.
these substances are extracts of animals, plants, or yeasts,
including such materials as ground-up cells, tissues, and
secretions.
Examples are blood, serum, and meat extracts or
infusions.
Infusions are high in vitamins, minerals, proteins, and
other organic nutrients.
Other nonsynthetic ingredients are milk, yeast
extract, soybean digests,and peptone.
Peptone is a partially digested protein, rich in
amino acids, that is often used as a carbon and
nitrogen source.
Nutrient broth, blood agar, and MacConkey agar,
though different in function and appearance, are all
nonsynthetic media.
They present a rich mixture of nutrients for microbes
that have complex nutritional needs.
A specific example can be used to compare what
differentiates
a synthetic medium from a nonsynthetic one.
Both synthetic Euglena medium and nonsynthetic nutrient
broth contain amino acids.
But Euglena medium has three known amino acids in
known amounts, whereas nutrient broth contains amino
acids (in peptone) in variable types and amounts.
Pure inorganic salts and organic acids are added in precise
quantities for Euglena, whereas those components are
provided by undefined beef extract in nutrient broth.
Microbiologists have many types of media at their
disposal, with new ones being devised all the time.
Depending upon what is added, a microbiologist can
fine-tune a medium for nearly any purpose.
Media are used for primary isolation, to maintain
cultures in the lab, to determine biochemical and
growth characteristics, and for numerous other
functions.
General-purpose media are designed to grow as
broad a spectrum of microbes as possible
They are nonsynthetic and contain a mixture of
nutrients that could support the growth of pathogens
and nonpathogens alike.
Examples include nutrient agar and broth, brain-heart
infusion, and trypticase soy agar (TSA).
TSA contains partially digested milk protein (casein),
soybean digest, NaCl, and agar.
An enriched medium contains complex organic substances
such as blood, serum, hemoglobin, or special growth factors
(specific vitamins, amino acids) that certain species must have in
order to grow.
Bacteria that require growth factors and complex nutrients
are termed fastidious.* Blood agar, which is made by adding
sterile sheep, horse, or rabbit blood to a sterile agar base.
This is widely employed to grow fastidious streptococci and other
pathogens.
Pathogenic Neisseria (one species causes gonorrhea)
are grown on Thayer-Martin medium or chocolate agar, which is
made by heating blood agar
Selective and Differential Media.
 Some of the cleverest and most inventive media
belong to the categories of selective and differential
media
they have extensive applications in isolation
and identification.
They can permit, in a single step, the preliminary
identification of a genus or even a species.
A selective medium (table 3.3) contains one or more
agents that inhibit the growth of a certain microbe or microbes
(A, B, C) but not others (D) and thereby encourages, or selects,
microbe D and allows
it to grow.
Selective media are very important in primary isolation of a
specific type of microorganism from samples containing dozens
of different species—for example, feces, saliva, skin, water, and
soil.
They hasten isolation by suppressing the unwanted background
organisms and favoring growth of the desired ones.
Mannitol salt agar (MSA) (figure 3.9a) contains a
concentration of NaCl (7.5%) that is quite inhibitory to
most human pathogens.
One exception is the genus Staphylococcus, which
grows well in this medium and consequently can be
amplified in very mixed samples.
Bile salts, a component of feces, inhibit most
gram-positive bacteria while permitting many gram-
negative rods to grow.
Media for isolating intestinal pathogens (MacConkey
agar, eosin methylene blue [EMB] agar) contain bile
salts as a selective agent.
Dyes such as methylene blue and crystal violet
also inhibit certain gram-positive bacteria.
Other agents that have selective properties are
antimicrobic drugs and acid.
Selenite and brilliant green dye are used in media to
isolate Salmonella from feces, and sodium azide is used
to isolate enterococci from water and food.
Differential media grow several types of
microorganisms and are designed to display visible
differences among those microorganisms.
Differentiation shows up as variations in colony size
or color, in media color changes, or in the formation of
gas bubbles and precipitates.
These variations come from the type of chemicals
these media contain and the ways that microbes react
to them.
For example, when microbe X metabolizes a certain
substance not used by organism Y, then X will cause a
visible change in the medium and Y will not.
Dyes can be used as differential agents because many of them are
pH indicators that change color in response to the production of an
acid or a base. For example, MacConkey agar contains neutral
red, a dye that is yellow when neutral and pink or red when acidic.
A common intestinal bacterium such as Escherichia coli that gives
off acid when it metabolizes the lactose in the medium develops
red
to pink colonies, and one like Salmonella that does not give off acid
remains its natural color (off-white). Spirit blue agar is used to
detect
the hydrolysis (digestion) of fats by lipase enzyme.