When trying to isolate bacteria, what type of media is used for enrichment for direct isolation?
A. The enrichment process uses liquid media to grow large numbers of bacteria. Finally, when the offspring from a single bacterial cell is desired, solid media using agar (an extract from seaweed) is prepared with a combination of other compounds (carbon, nitrogen, salts) to allow the growth of colonies. Both these techniques can be used to support the growth of a desired organism. In lab we mostly use a medium called Tryptic soy agar (TSA). Q. Whats is agar and under what conditions must the agar plates be incubated at? A. Agar is an extract taken from seaweed that is a sulfuric ester of a long chain of galactose units. Agar plates are made by dissolving agar into a buffered solution containing nutrients and heating to 100 degrees celsius. The solution is usually poured immediately into petri dishes and then allowed to cool and solidify. In order for bacteria to grow well, the plates must be incubated at a tempearture near 37 degrees celsius and upside-down. The plates are incubated i
