Bacterial culturing

Bacterial culturing is the practice of growing bacteria in the lab. The nutrients bacteria need are provided by the culture medium. Bacteria can be grown in liquid culture or on media made solid by the addition of agar, which gives culture media a gel-like consistency. Other conditions that are important for bacterial growth, such as the temperature and gas composition, are regulated by the incubator. A culture that contains only a single type of microorganism is called a pure culture. Some clinical samples taken from normally sterile environments such as the blood or cerebrospinal fluid are already pure cultures. Samples from sites with diverse microflora such as nasal samples or stool samples are likely to be a mixture of different microorganisms. In this case, a pure culture can be obtained and maintained through specific culture conditions and good aseptic technique.