Bacterial cultivation, preservation and inactivation

Bacterial growth

Considerations for bacterial nutrition and physical and chemical factors

Microbial preservation

Inactivating microorganisms

Binary fission

4 growth phases

Lag -> Exponential growth -> Stationary -> Decline

Lag phase: After innoculation, metabolism to get ready to divide

Exponential phase: Binary fission=exponential increase

Stationary Phase: Essential nutrients depleted / Toxic metabolic products

Decline phase: Old cells die followed by young

Enumeration

Microscopic counting

Colony counting

Opacity/turbidity

From fixed smear, arbitrary number of fields counted

Doesnt account for viability of cell

Make 10 fold serial dilutions, spread fixed volume on each plate and incubate

Count colonies on plates. Viable organisms in suspension=CFU

Opacity tubes. Compare to McFarland Standards

Spectrometry/Optical density

Quick, but no info if viable

Growth requires raw materials: some form of carbon

Autotrophs vs. heterotrophs

Autotrophs use CO2 to make own compounds

Heterotrophs use pre-formed organic compounds

Nutrition

Need lots of C and N

Peptones provide C&N and essential nutrients (P,S,Ca2+, etc)

Phosphates (nucleic acids)

Sulphur (amino acid production)

Extracellular molecules collect nutrients

Siderophores, hemolysins collect iron

Extracellular enzymes

Semi-starvation state: slower metabolism+smaller size

Sporulation and "resting cells"

Very low metabolic rate

Change shape, develop think coat

Endospores form within cells, v. resistant

Spores are for survival, triggered by low nutrients

Culture medium

Defined vs complex

Defined: known amounts of known chemicals

Selective and differential

Complex: hyrolysates, extracts, etc

Selective media limits growth of unwanted microbes

Differential allows differentiation between different microbes

A medium can be both

Physical and chemical growth reuirements

Highly diverse in types of conditions can grow in

Growth influences by temp, pH, moisture, atmospheric composition, osmotic pressure

Oxygen requirements

Aerobes

Microaerophiles

Anaerobes

Require oxygen but only small amounts

Obligate anaerobes

Aerotolerant anaerobes

Facultative anaerobes (can grow with or without O2)

Why

Vaccine production

Research and teaching

How

Freezing in liquid nitrogen

Dessication (freeze drying then stored as ampoules in dark)

Inactivation useful terms

Asepsis

Antimicrobial chemicals

Sepsis

Aseptic technique

Prevent microbial contamination of cultures (lab) or wounds (clinical)

Microbial contamination

Absence of significant contamination

Disinfectant (for inanimate objects)

Antiseptic (for living tissue)

Expected to destroy pathogens but not to achieve sterilization

Disinfection

Sterilisation

Antisepsis

Bacteriostatic

Bactericidal

Kill bacteria

Inhibits bacterial reproduction

Destruction of microorganisms by direct exposure to chemical or physical agents

Destroy all microbial life

Chemicals applied to body surfaces to destroy/inhibit pathogens

Microbe types and life cycle phases different susceptibilities to controls

Organic matter (e.g. Faeces in dairy footbath)

Ability heat/chemical to kill microbes

Exposure time and working concentration

Physical methods

Chemical methods

Refrigeration

Freezing

Boiling

Vaccum packing

Pasteurization (HTST/Flash or UHT)

Thermal death point, thermal death time and decimal reduction time

Moist heat more effective than dry heat

Filtration

Radiation (Gamma or UV)

Increase osmotic pressure (using salts/sugars) -> plasmolysis

Acidification

Sulfur dioxide

Disinfectants

Surfactants

Phenols an phenolics

Acid-anionic detergens

Cationic detergents

Halogens

Alcohols

Chlorine

Iodine

Heavy metals

Oligodynamic action -> denature proteins by altering disulphide bonds

Silver

Mercury

Copper