Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

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.

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