Lactobacillus Acidophilus Growth

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kef2018
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Apr 24, 2017 8:27 am
Occupation: Student

Lactobacillus Acidophilus Growth

Post by kef2018 »

Hello,
I am researching the impacts of artificial sweeteners (sucralose, acesulfame potassium, aspartame, saccharin) on the growth of lactobacillus acidophilus. I purchased five tubes of the freeze dried viable cultures from Carolina (http://www.carolina.com/bacteria/lactob ... cidophilus) and am planning to inoculate the bacteria for 48 hours at 37° C in the provided medium. After, I plan to expose the bacteria to a solution made of artificial sweetener and distilled water and again incubate them for 48 hours at 37 °C in the same test tubes and growing media. I hope to analyze the amount of bacterial growth when exposed to each of the artificial sweeteners compared to the untouched control. However, I am concerned as how to tell if the bacteria are alive or dead. Is there a way to determine if bacteria grown in liquid media are alive or dead? Thank you for your help.
EAMills
Former Expert
Posts: 27
Joined: Tue Sep 27, 2016 11:46 am
Occupation: Other Adult

Re: Lactobacillus Acidophilus Growth

Post by EAMills »

Hello Kef2018,

That sounds like an interesting experiment! Whether or not you can tell the difference between dead and live bacteria in a culture depends on the strain, in many cases you can tell. However, certain strains will lyse (remove) the dead cells, so taking a density measurement would then reflect the total amount of living cells. I believe that with lactobacillus this is the case.
This troubleshooting guide will hopefully help.
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... oblems.pdf

Good luck,
Elizabeth
kef2018
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Apr 24, 2017 8:27 am
Occupation: Student

Re: Lactobacillus Acidophilus Growth

Post by kef2018 »

Thank you so much for your help!
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