Microbial Culture:
A microbiological culture or microbial culture, is a method of multiplying microbial organism by letting them reproduce in predetermined culture media under controlled laboratory conditions.
Culturing of microbes involves fallowing steps
I) Media preparation
II) Inoculation
III) Incubation
iv) Isolation
V) Inspection and
VI) Identification
I) Media preparation
Microbial culture media preparation is the process of mixing nutrients, agents for buffering and maintaining the osmotic balance, as well as selective inhibitors or indicators to create an agar or broth that supports the growth and the differentiation of microorganisms.
II) Inoculation
Producing a pure culture introduce microbe( Bacteria ) into a growth medium using 'aseptic technique' inside laminar air flow chamber to prevent contamination. tools used for inoculation are Bunsen burner, inoculation loop, needle, alcohol, etc.
III) Incubation
The inoculated microbes are allow to multiply and grow under the favorable environmental conditions. Here we use incubator which maintain optimum environmental condition for the multiplication and growth of the culturing microbe.
IV) Isolation
The grown colony on media are some time different, each colony consist of different species of microbes hence we have to isolate a particular kind of colony or strains for pure culture.
V) Inspection
It involves the observation of colony, morphology, microscopic examination and systematic recording of data.
VI) Identification
This step involves the identification of grown microbes by correlating the all observed data.
Applications
- Production of primary metabolites like acids, alcohols etc.
- To culture whole microbial cell for the production of food, vaccines etc.
- Mass production of antibiotic or secondary metabolites
- Bio transformation reaction (enzymatic steroids)
- Microbial leaching , biodegradable waste treatment
- Synthesis of recombinant proteins etc.