Sterilization of microbial media

Introduction
Most culturable microorganisms grow either in suspension on liquid media or on the surface of semisolid agar media. These microbial media contain all nutrients required for microbial growth in solution.A typical complex medium contains yeast extract, meat extract and an additional carbohydrate (e.g. glucose or sucrose). The composition of these extracts is highly complex. The extracts contain all compounds necessary for microbial growth: proteins, peptides, carbohydrates, lipids and nucleotides as well as vitamins, cofactors and trace elements. Due to the high complexity of the extract, the exact composition cannot be defined. Therefore, mineral media, containing defined amounts of pure chemicals are required for all studies related to microbial utilization of specific substrates, e.g. experiments on regulation of catabolic enzyme expression. Also minimal media (containing the minimum nutrients required for growth) and some selective media are mineral media.


(All videos on this page) PRODUCER: Johanna Spaak, MSc

Video 1
Preparation of sterile media



Video 2
Solid-media-Agarplates



Video 3
Liquid-media-Trace-elements



Video 4
Sterile-filtration



Video 5
Liquid-media-Glass-pipettes



Video 6
Liquid-media-Cultures