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An agar plate is a Petri dish that contains a growth medium solidified with agar, used to culture microorganisms. Sometimes selective compounds are added to influence growth, such as antibiotics.
A cleanroom or clean room is an engineered space, which maintains a very low concentration of airborne particulates. It is well isolated, well-controlled from contamination, and actively cleansed. Such rooms are commonly needed for scientific research, and in industrial production for all nanoscale processes, such as semiconductor manufacturing. A cleanroom is designed to keep everything from dust, to airborne organisms, or vaporised particles, away from it, and so from whatever material is being handled inside it.
Sterilization refers to any process that removes, kills, or deactivates all forms of life and other biological agents such as prions present in or on a specific surface, object, or fluid. Sterilization can be achieved through various means, including heat, chemicals, irradiation, high pressure, and filtration. Sterilization is distinct from disinfection, sanitization, and pasteurization, in that those methods reduce rather than eliminate all forms of life and biological agents present. After sterilization, an object is referred to as being sterile or aseptic.
A microbiological culture, or microbial culture, is a method of multiplying microbial organisms by letting them reproduce in predetermined culture medium under controlled laboratory conditions. Microbial cultures are foundational and basic diagnostic methods used as research tools in molecular biology.
Bacteriological water analysis is a method of analysing water to estimate the numbers of bacteria present and, if needed, to find out what sort of bacteria they are. It represents one aspect of water quality. It is a microbiological analytical procedure which uses samples of water and from these samples determines the concentration of bacteria. It is then possible to draw inferences about the suitability of the water for use from these concentrations. This process is used, for example, to routinely confirm that water is safe for human consumption or that bathing and recreational waters are safe to use.
A blood culture is a medical laboratory test used to detect bacteria or fungi in a person's blood. Under normal conditions, the blood does not contain microorganisms: their presence can indicate a bloodstream infection such as bacteremia or fungemia, which in severe cases may result in sepsis. By culturing the blood, microbes can be identified and tested for resistance to antimicrobial drugs, which allows clinicians to provide an effective treatment.
A fecal coliform is a facultatively anaerobic, rod-shaped, gram-negative, non-sporulating bacterium. Coliform bacteria generally originate in the intestines of warm-blooded animals. Fecal coliforms are capable of growth in the presence of bile salts or similar surface agents, are oxidase negative, and produce acid and gas from lactose within 48 hours at 44 ± 0.5°C. The term "thermotolerant coliform" is more correct and is gaining acceptance over "fecal coliform".
In microbiology, colony-forming unit is a unit which estimates the number of microbial cells in a sample that are viable, able to multiply via binary fission under the controlled conditions. Counting with colony-forming units requires culturing the microbes and counts only viable cells, in contrast with microscopic examination which counts all cells, living or dead. The visual appearance of a colony in a cell culture requires significant growth, and when counting colonies, it is uncertain if the colony arose from one cell or a group of cells. Expressing results as colony-forming units reflects this uncertainty.
Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL) is an aqueous extract of blood cells (amoebocytes) from the Atlantic horseshoe crab Limulus polyphemus. LAL reacts with bacterial endotoxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS), which is a membrane component of gram-negative bacteria. This reaction is the basis of the LAL test, which is widely used for the detection and quantification of bacterial endotoxins.
In microbiology, streaking is a technique used to isolate a pure strain from a single species of microorganism, often bacteria. Samples can then be taken from the resulting colonies and a microbiological culture can be grown on a new plate so that the organism can be identified, studied, or tested.
Trypticase soy agar or tryptone soya agar (TSA) and Trypticasesoy broth or tryptone soya broth (TSB) with agar are growth media for the culturing of bacteria. They are general-purpose, nonselective media providing enough nutrients to allow for a wide variety of microorganisms to grow. They are used for a wide range of applications, including culture storage, enumeration of cells (counting), isolation of pure cultures, or simply general culture.
Medical microbiology, the large subset of microbiology that is applied to medicine, is a branch of medical science concerned with the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases. In addition, this field of science studies various clinical applications of microbes for the improvement of health. There are four kinds of microorganisms that cause infectious disease: bacteria, fungi, parasites and viruses, and one type of infectious protein called prion.
Pharmaceutical microbiology is an applied branch of microbiology. It involves the study of microorganisms associated with the manufacture of pharmaceuticals e.g. minimizing the number of microorganisms in a process environment, excluding microorganisms and microbial byproducts like exotoxin and endotoxin from water and other starting materials, and ensuring the finished pharmaceutical product is sterile. Other aspects of pharmaceutical microbiology include the research and development of anti-infective agents, the use of microorganisms to detect mutagenic and carcinogenic activity in prospective drugs, and the use of microorganisms in the manufacture of pharmaceutical products like insulin and human growth hormone.
Plate count agar (PCA), also called standard methods agar (SMA), is a microbiological growth medium commonly used to assess or to monitor "total" or viable bacterial growth of a sample. PCA is not a selective medium.
A dip slide is a test for the presence of microorganisms in liquids. The use of dip slides is the method most frequently used to measure and observe microbial activity in liquid-based systems. It is often used in testing cooling systems. Dip slides are often used to determine the presence of slime forming bacteria in cooling & industrial water systems. The Health and Safety Executive's (HSE) recommends the use of dipslides to monitor the general activity of aerobic bacteria. The dip slide test consists of a sterile culture medium on a plastic carrier that is dipped into the liquid to be sampled. The culture is then incubated, allowing for microbial growth. Most Dip slides consist of 1 - 2 agars attached to a flexible plastic paddle, this allows full contact of the agar onto the desired area for testing. Most Dipslides come in a circular clear shatterproof tube that can be inserted into a dip-slide incubator.
Ultrapure water (UPW), high-purity water or highly purified water (HPW) is water that has been purified to uncommonly stringent specifications. Ultrapure water is a term commonly used in manufacturing to emphasize the fact that the water is treated to the highest levels of purity for all contaminant types, including: organic and inorganic compounds; dissolved and particulate matter; volatile and non-volatile; reactive, and inert; hydrophilic and hydrophobic; and dissolved gases.
Bacillus pumilus is a Gram-positive, aerobic, spore-forming bacillus commonly found in soil.
A spiral plater is an instrument used to dispense a liquid sample onto a Petri dish in a spiral pattern. Commonly used as part of a CFU count procedure for the purpose of determining the number of microbes in the sample. In this setting, after spiral plating, the Petri dish is incubated for several hours after which the number of colony forming microbes (CFU) is determined. Spiral platers are also used for research, clinical diagnostics and as a method for covering a Petri dish with bacteria before placing antibiotic discs for AST.
In microbiology, the term isolation refers to the separation of a strain from a natural, mixed population of living microbes, as present in the environment, for example in water or soil, or from living beings with skin flora, oral flora or gut flora, in order to identify the microbe(s) of interest. Historically, the laboratory techniques of isolation first developed in the field of bacteriology and parasitology, before those in virology during the 20th century.
Diagnostic microbiology is the study of microbial identification. Since the discovery of the germ theory of disease, scientists have been finding ways to harvest specific organisms. Using methods such as differential media or genome sequencing, physicians and scientists can observe novel functions in organisms for more effective and accurate diagnosis of organisms. Methods used in diagnostic microbiology are often used to take advantage of a particular difference in organisms and attain information about what species it can be identified as, which is often through a reference of previous studies. New studies provide information that others can reference so that scientists can attain a basic understanding of the organism they are examining.
References
- ↑ Mosby's Dental Dictionary (2nd ed.). Elsevier, Inc. 2008.
- ↑ "Pace Analytical". Archived from the original on 2011-11-22. Retrieved 2012-06-12.
- ↑ 21 C.F.R. 211.110 (a) (6)
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 USP 31 <61> Microbiological Examination. https://www.uspnf.com/sites/default/files/usp_pdf/EN/USPNF/generalChapter61.pdf
- ↑ PathCon Laboratories. http://www.pathcon.com/documents/MB_USP_797.pdf
- ↑ Lowe, Christy (2011). "Operating Room HVAC Setback Strategies" (PDF). The American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE). Retrieved December 13, 2017.