Day 4: 5/19

Slants and Plates: The Start of Many Experiments

Mary Rose is sick:

To start off this Monday afternoon in the lab we examined the petri dish of Mary Rose's streptococcus that had grown over the weekend. We examined the dish that had bacitracin and concluded that it was in fact streptococcus (Congratulations to Mary Rose for saving 80 bucks!)

The second plate contained spots of Penicillin, cloves and cinnamon of Pete's doing.  Apparently cinnamon has been a wonder drug all along and was most effective in killing the bacteria and here we thought it was just a nice spice. Cloves were not as effective. but that is because they are used more as a topical application to the throat.

We inoculated several tubes and plates:
The materials we used were:
Bunsen burner
loop and stab inoculators
striker
China marker
2 slant tubes
1 agar deep tube of motility medium
2 petri dishes
perti dish with grown "N" bacteria
thioglycollate broth tube

Next using Aseptic technique, we inoculated two slant tubes with the unknown bacteria "N" using a stab inoculator, made three deep stabs into the agar and after marking the tubes "N" we placed them in the incubator of 30 degrees Celsius. (our other slant tubes were just a liquid disaster)

We also inoculated an agar deep tube of motility test medium for a motility test , using the Aseptic technique. Again we used the stab innoculator and after inoculating it with three deep stabs we marked the tube "N" and placed it in 30 degrees Celsius incubator.

Culturing Anaerobic Bacteria:

For this experiment our purpose was to cultivate bacteria that cannot survive in the presence of oxygen. There were two parts to this experiment, the first was to inoculate a thioglycollate broth tube with the unknown bacteria and the inoculating loop.  We made a dip with the loop with the bacteria deep into the broth tube which contained an oxygen part and a part with no oxygen. After marking it we placed it in the 30 degree Celsius incubator to grow. After 48 hours we will examine the tube for growth

The second part of this test involved a perti dish with inoculated unknown bacteria and a GasPak Anaerobic system.  After a lovely presentation by Dr. P we learned about the GasPak and how it works. This system uses a chemical reaction to consume free oxygen gas in a sealed jar.  The chemicals in the "scalding hot" envelope activates with water and eventually produces carbon dioxide which stimulates the growth of some anaerobes.  We placed a indicator strip that had turned white to blue after we opened it (yay real oxygen is in the Steubenville air!) and we placed in in the jar.  When the indicator strip turns white again we will know that there is no more oxygen in the sealed jar.  We placed our whole inoculated agar plate with the unknown bacteria into the jar and the mighty strong Pete sealed it for us.  Now, we wait for anaerobic growth.

Finally we inoculated a perti dish of agar with the streptococcus from Mary Rose and made a spread plate. We used a 50 micro liter dispenser to place the streptococcus onto the agar and then spread it out on the loop.  Then we placed a bacteriophage onto the petri dish and traced our initials and drew a star :) Next lab we should see the bacteria growing but not where the virus has been placed. Then we placed it in the 37 degree Celsius incubator because the bacteria grows in humans.