Bacterial Cultures

Bacterial cultures are useful for evaluating growth on differential media, testing antibiotic sensitivity and resistance, and selecting colonies for further testing.

 

Blood agar is perhaps the most commonly used plate, and can be used to grow fastodious organisms and test for hemolytic capacity. McKonkey is used to grow gram-negative bacteria and test them for lactose fermentation. Other plates include pen-strep (for yeast), Mannitol salts (for strep), chocolate agar (for Hemophilus), or OFPBC.