MPN Drop Agar Method for Determination of Heterotrophic Microorganisms in Soil and Water Samples Using Tissue Plate as a Carrier
Department of Environmental Chemistry, Faculty of Environmental Technology, University of Chemical Technology in Prague, Technická 5, 166 28 Prague 6, Czech Republic
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2020, 12(19), 8252; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12198252
Received: 29 July 2020 / Revised: 2 October 2020 / Accepted: 5 October 2020 / Published: 7 October 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Carbon Footprint and Sustainability Assessment)
The most probable number (MPN) method is a culture-based method commonly used in the field of environmental microbiology to examine microbial populations in liquid substrates. The MPN tests require a wide range of special laboratory equipment, a lot of laboratory space, and skilled staff, which together limit their applicability. This paper presents a modified MPN method, which reduces the experimental requirements by applying tissue plate as a carrier. The modified MPN method introduces a fast-filled tissue plate with 5 × 5 squares as agar carrier, instead of the commonly used set of glass tubes. Further, self-refilling automatic syringe Socorex® was implemented to apply samples to the plate. The response of the modified MPN method was tested on eight selected bacterial strains as well as on soil and water samples. Simultaneously, all the strains and samples were tested by standard spread plate method. High linear correlation between the two methods was found, which makes a new modified MPN method a useful alternative within the field of environmental microbiology.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
culture-based methods; soil; tissue plate; water
▼
Show Figures
Figure 1
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Chumchalová, J.; Kubal, M. MPN Drop Agar Method for Determination of Heterotrophic Microorganisms in Soil and Water Samples Using Tissue Plate as a Carrier. Sustainability 2020, 12, 8252. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12198252
AMA Style
Chumchalová J, Kubal M. MPN Drop Agar Method for Determination of Heterotrophic Microorganisms in Soil and Water Samples Using Tissue Plate as a Carrier. Sustainability. 2020; 12(19):8252. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12198252
Chicago/Turabian StyleChumchalová, Jana, and Martin Kubal. 2020. "MPN Drop Agar Method for Determination of Heterotrophic Microorganisms in Soil and Water Samples Using Tissue Plate as a Carrier" Sustainability 12, no. 19: 8252. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12198252
Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
