Aims: Several acidophilic bacteria have not been cultured, primarily owing to the lack of suitable culture methods under strong acidic conditions. This study aimed to quantitatively evaluate the strengths of the agar plates (AP) and gellan gum plates (GP), and optimal culture periods under strong acidic conditions.
Methods and results: To define the lower limit of plate strength for bacterial isolation culture, the diameter of Escherichia coli K12 colonies and the breaking stress of plates at different concentrations of gelling agents, medium composition and pH conditions were determined. The lower limit of available strength of AP and GP was 19·6 and 14·8 kPa, respectively. Medium composition slightly affected AP breaking stress, although GP with a high cationic concentration medium could not be prepared.
Conclusions: Assessment of the strength limits of AP and GP revealed that AP is not suitable for prolonged bacterial culture (≥72 h). Furthermore, GP was completely ineffective for bacterial culture under highly acidic conditions (≤pH 1·0).
Significance and impact of the study: Our quantitative evaluation method based on breaking stress is a potentially valuable tool to understand the state and the suitable limit of plate culture methods in more detail under various conditions.
Keywords: acidophilic bacteria; agar hydrolysis; agar plate; bacterial culture; colony swarming; isolation culture; plate culture method; uncultured bacteria.
© 2020 The Society for Applied Microbiology.