Microbiological culture

Microbiological culture is the growth of microorganisms in or on nutrient media under controlled conditions, or the microorganisms produced by that growth.

Culture medium: A nutrient preparation used to support the growth of microorganisms in laboratory conditions. Its nutrients and physical form shape which organisms a culture can support.
Microbial identification: The process of determining the identity of a microorganism using its characteristics or molecular evidence. Growth characteristics and isolated colonies provide evidence for identifying cultured organisms.
Culture-independent microbiology: The study of microorganisms using methods that do not require their growth in laboratory culture. It can detect organisms that fail to grow under the conditions used for cultivation.
Louis Pasteur: A French chemist whose work established microbial roles in fermentation and disease. His studies of fermentation helped make microorganisms subjects of controlled investigation.
Great plate count anomaly: The observation that direct microbial counts often greatly exceed counts obtained by standard cultivation. It shows that routine culture conditions recover only a fraction of organisms in many samples.
Agar plate: A shallow dish containing solidified agar medium used to grow and observe microorganisms. Separated colonies on its surface help reveal distinct organisms within a mixed sample.
Antimicrobial susceptibility testing: Laboratory testing that measures how susceptible microorganisms are to antimicrobial drugs. Standardized cultures make it possible to compare microbial growth under drug exposure.
Metagenomics: The study of genetic material recovered directly from environmental or clinical samples. Sequencing mixed samples can reveal microbial diversity without isolating each organism in culture.
Robert Koch: A German physician who established methods linking particular microorganisms to infectious diseases. His laboratory methods made isolation and cultivation central to bacteriology.
Viable but non-culturable state: A condition in which microbial cells remain viable but do not grow on routine culture media. It explains why viable organisms can disappear from culture-based counts.

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