Question:
I am 7th grade student doing an experiment with environmental bacteria. I am
using Luria Broth Agar. I need to know what nutrients are used in this agar.
Replies:
If you simply need the recipe, I can provide that for you.
However, Luria Broth is a rich medium, which means its content is
largely undefined as far as the presence and concentrations of
various nutrients. The recipe for 1 liter:
10 g Bacot-tryptone
5 g Bacto-yeast extract
10 g NaCl
pH 7.0
Bacto-tryptone is an enzymatic digest of protein to provided amino acids to
the growing bacteria. Yeast extract is a powdered extract of growing
yeast and provides just about any type of organic molecule that a growing
bacteria would need. LB is an excellent general purpose medium because
a wide variety of organisms will grow on it, but it is not very useful
for defining the nutritional requirements of a particular bacterium.
To do this, you would need to find a defined medium that the bacterium
will grow on, and then begin removing components one at a time to test
for growth. I might be able to provide you with some recipes for defined
media if you are interested.
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