Effects of Sugars on Metabolism of Bacteria

[Microhelp]

Does anyone know the ideal concentration of a sugar solution (sucrose, glucose, fructose and galactose) to encourage growth of E.coli and Staph? I know at some point growth can be inhibited if the concentration reaches a certain level. I'm putting together an experiment for an intro to micro class.

[donnahardy2]

Hi,

Welcome to Science Buddies. Here’s information from the science buddies website that includes recommendations for bacterial culture media suitable for high school use:

http://sciencebuddies.com/science-fair- ... Agar.shtml

Here’s a site that includes recipes for several types of media:


http://www.thelabrat.com/protocols/bacculture.shtml


I don’t know what experiment you are doing, but Staphylococcus and E. coli will grow on media with and without sugars. If you do add glucose, a concentration of 0.5 to 1% should work well, but 0.5% is used in commercial media.

If you want to use a selective medium for these organisms, you can use eosin metyhylene blue agar for E. coli and mannitol salt agar for Staphylococcus:

http://www.midlandstech.edu/science/kel ... media.html

Good luck!


Donna Hardy