Amicrobiological culture, ormicrobial culture, is a method of multiplyingmicrobial organisms by letting them reproduce in predeterminedculture medium under controlled laboratory conditions. Microbial cultures are foundational and basic diagnostic methods used as research tools inmolecular biology.

The termculture can also refer to the microorganisms being grown.

Microbial cultures are used to determine the type of organism, its abundance in the sample being tested, or both. It is one of the primarydiagnostic methods ofmicrobiology and used as a tool to determine the cause ofinfectious disease by letting the agent multiply in a predetermined medium. For example, athroat culture is taken by scraping the lining of tissue in the back of the throat and blotting the sample into a medium to be able to screen for harmful microorganisms, such asStreptococcus pyogenes, the causative agent of strep throat.^[1] Furthermore, the term culture is more generally used informally to refer to "selectively growing" a specific kind of microorganism in the lab.

It is often essential to isolate a pure culture of microorganisms. A pure (oraxenic) culture is a population ofcells ormulticellular organisms growing in the absence of otherspecies or types. A pure culture may originate from a single cell or single organism, in which case the cells are geneticclones of one another. For the purpose of gelling the microbial culture, the medium of agarose gel (agar) is used. Agar is a gelatinous substance derived fromseaweed. A cheap substitute for agar isguar gum, which can be used for the isolation and maintenance ofthermophiles.

The first culture media was liquid media, designed byLouis Pasteur in 1860.^[2] This was used in the laboratory untilRobert Koch's development of solid media in 1881.^[3] Koch's method of using a flat plate for his solid media was replaced byJulius Richard Petri's round box in 1887.^[2] Since these foundational inventions, a diverse array of media and methods have evolved to help scientists grow, identify, and purify cultures of microorganisms.

The culturing ofprokaryotes typically involves bacteria, since archaea are difficult to culture in a laboratory setting.^[4] To obtain a pure prokaryotic culture, one must start the culture from a single cell or a single colony of the organism.^[5] Since a prokaryotic colony is theasexual offspring of a single cell, all of the cells are genetically identical and will result in a pure culture.

Virus andphage cultures require host cells in which the virus or phage multiply. For bacteriophages, cultures are grown by infecting bacterial cells. The phage can then be isolated from the resulting plaques in a lawn of bacteria on a plate. Viral cultures are obtained from their appropriate eukaryotic host cells. Thestreak plate method is a way to physically separate the microbial population, and is done by spreading the inoculate back and forth with aninoculating loop over the solid agar plate. Uponincubation, colonies will arise and single cells will have been isolated from thebiomass. Once a microorganism has been isolated in pure culture, it is necessary to preserve it in a viable state for further study and use in cultures called stock cultures. These cultures have to be maintained, such that there is no loss of their biological, immunological and cultural characters.

Eukaryotic cell cultures provide a controlled environment for studyingeukaryotic organisms. Single-celled eukaryotes - such as yeast, algae, and protozoans - can be cultured in similar ways to prokaryotic cultures. The same is true for multicellular microscopic eukaryotes, such asC. elegans.

Although macroscopic eukaryotic organisms are too large to culture in a laboratory, cells taken from these organisms can be cultured. This allows researchers to study specific parts and processes of a macroscopic eukaryotein vitro.

One method of microbiological culture is liquid culture, in which the desired organisms are suspended in a liquid nutrient medium, such asLuria broth, in an upright flask. This allows a scientist to grow up large amounts of bacteria or other microorganisms for a variety of downstream applications.

Liquid cultures are ideal for preparation of an antimicrobial assay in which the liquid broth is inoculated with bacteria and let to grow overnight (a ‘shaker’ may be used to mechanically mix the broth, to encourage uniform growth). Subsequently, aliquots of the sample are taken to test for the antimicrobial activity of a specific drug or protein (antimicrobial peptides).

Static liquid cultures may be used as an alternative. These cultures are not shaken, and they provide the microbes with an oxygen gradient.^[6]

Microbiological cultures can be grown inpetri dishes of differing sizes that have a thin layer of agar-based growth medium. Once the growth medium in the petri dish is inoculated with the desired bacteria, the plates are incubated at the optimal temperature for the growing of the selected bacteria (for example, usually at 37 degrees Celsius, or thehuman body temperature, for cultures from humans or animals, or lower for environmental cultures). After the desired level of growth is achieved, agar plates can be stored upside down in a refrigerator for an extended period of time to keep bacteria for future experiments.

There are a variety ofadditives that can be added to agar before it is poured into a plate and allowed to solidify. Some types of bacteria can only grow in the presence of certain additives. This can also be used when creating engineered strains of bacteria that contain anantibiotic-resistance gene. When the selected antibiotic is added to the agar, only bacterial cells containing the gene insert conferring resistance will be able to grow. This allows the researcher to select only the colonies that were successfully transformed.

Miniaturized version of agar plates implemented to dipstick formats, e.g. Dip Slide, Digital Dipstick^[7] show potential to be used at thepoint-of-care fordiagnosis purposes. They have advantages over agar plates since they are cost effective and their operation does not require expertise or laboratory environment, which enable them to be used at the point-of-care.

Selective and differential media reveal characteristics about the microorganisms being cultured on them. This kind of media can be selective, differential, or both selective and differential. Growing a culture on multiple kinds of selective and differential media can purify mixed cultures and reveal to scientists the characteristics needed to identify unknown cultures.

Selective media is used to distinguish organisms by allowing for a specific kind of organism to grow on it while inhibiting the growth of others. For example,eosin methylene blue (EMB) may be used to select against Gram-positive bacteria, most of which have hindered growth on EMB, and select for Gram-negative bacteria, whose growth is not inhibited on EMB.^[8]

Scientists use differential media when culturing microorganisms to reveal certain biochemical characteristics about the organisms. These revealed traits can then be compared to attributes of known microorganisms in an effort to identify unknown cultures. An example of this isMacConkey agar (MAC), which reveals lactose-fermenting bacteria through a pH indicator that changes color when acids are produced from fermentation.^[9]

On multitarget panels, bacteria isolated from a previously grown colony are distributed into each well, each of which contains growth medium as well as the ingredients for a biochemical test, which will change the absorbance of the well depending on the bacterial property for the tested target. The panel will be incubated in a machine, which subsequently analyses each well with a light-based method such as colorimetry, turbidimetry, or fluorometry.^[10] The combined results will be automatically compared to a database of known results for various bacterial species, in order to generate a diagnosis of what bacterial species is present in the current panel. Simultaneously, it performsantibiotic susceptibility testing.

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  Multitarget microbial panel. A small amount of the bacteria to be tested is placed in each well, each of which has the ingredients for a separate test.
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  Microbial panels loaded into an instrument used for automated antibiotic sensitivity testing of each well.
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  A laboratory worker reviews results displayed on the screen of the automated analyzer.

Stab cultures are similar to agar plates, but are formed by solid agar in a test tube. Bacteria is introduced via aninoculation needle or a pipette tip being stabbed into the center of the agar. Bacteria grow in the punctured area.^[11] Stab cultures are most commonly used for short-term storage or shipment of cultures. Additionally, stab cultures can reveal characteristics about cultured microorganisms such as motility or oxygen requirements.

For solid plate cultures of thermophilic microorganisms such asBacillus acidocaldarius, Bacillus stearothermophilus, Thermus aquaticus andThermus thermophilus etc. growing at temperatures of 50 to 70 degrees C, low acyl clarified gellan gum has been proven to be the preferred gelling agent comparing to agar for the counting or isolation or both of the above thermophilic bacteria.^[12]

Microbial culture collections focus on the acquisition, authentication, production, preservation, cataloguing and distribution of viable cultures of standard referencemicroorganisms, cell lines and other materials for research inmicrobial systematics.^[13][14] Culture collection are also repositories oftype strains.

• Blood culture
• Changestat
• Colony-forming unit
• Gellan gum
• Microbial dark matter
• Microbial Food Cultures
• Screening cultures
• Sputum culture
• Synchronous culture

• EFFCA - European Food and Feed Cultutes Association. Information about production and uses of microbial cultures as well as legislative aspects.