Acne Bacteria

[spoondru]

Hi, I'm checked out the science buddies project about testing which acne medication works the best to kill bacteria. https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p019.shtml. While I was researching, I found that the main bacteria that causes it is Propionibacterium acnes. I was wondering if the P. Acnes bacteria is safe to buy and if it can be sent to high schools. If not, does using E. Coli work for the experiment even if acne medication is mostly centered on killing the acne causing bacteria?

Thanks!

[deleted-141593]

Hi Spoondru,

There is good information in this old thread (scroll down a few posts for the direct link for purchasing P. Acnes from ATCC): https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... =28&t=7008
Let me know if this does not help.

Cheers,
Colin

[deleted-132180]

Hello there,

The previous poster already provided you a link with excellent information about P. acnes. The quick version is that P. acnes can be purchased from the ATCC (http://www.atcc.org/products/all/6919.aspx or http://www.atcc.org/products/all/11827.aspx). It is a BSL1 organism like E. coli, so it is likely okay to work with it in a high school lab, but of course you should always make sure with your teacher first. However, one thing that may be a concern is that P. acnes is anaerobic and you would need a special incubator to grow this organism. Does your high school lab have this? If not, you may either have to contact a local lab that works with P. acnes to see if they can help you with your project and growing this bacterium. Otherwise, like you had mentioned, you may have to opt for using E. coli as a model since it is easy to grow and it's BSL1. However, do realize that E. coli and P. acnes are different organisms. E. coli is a Gram negative bacterium and P. acnes is a Gram positive bacterium, so their cell membrane and cell wall compositions are different. This difference in membrane and cell wall composition may yield different results in how E. coli may react to the acne medication compared to P. acnes. In this case, you can try using Bacillus subtilis instead, which is a very easy bacterium to work with and is used often as a model organism like E. coli, but it is Gram positive like P. acnes. Granted they're not the same organism, but at least P. acnes and B. subtilis will have a more similar membrane and cell wall composition compared to E. coli since they are both Gram positive.

Hope that helped! Let us know if you have anymore questions.

Best,
Connie