BACTERIAL TRANSFERS

In working with living cultures of organisms, it is essential to observe a procedure known as aseptic (sterile) technique.  The goals of this procedure are twofold:

           1.   to prevent contamination of the culture
            2.  to prevent spread of culture organisms to the lab personnel or the environment.
 
STUDENT INSTRUCTION

The tubes of growing bacteria provided to you are stock cultures of common organisms.  These cultures should each be pure cultures (only one species of organism in the culture).  Our goal today is to allow you to start your own cultures from these stock cultures, maintaining the purity (avoiding contamination with other species). The organisms you will work with are:
 

Escherichia coli (E. coli) is a normal resident in the bowel of man and animals.  It is a short rod.  Easily grown under laboratory conditions and has been studied extensively.  Research with E. coli has led to advances in our understanding of cellular metabolism as well as genetics.  Genetic engineering using this organism has led to the bulk production of heretofore to obtain human cell products such as insulin, somototropin, and interferon.

Bacillus subtilis (B. sub.) is a common soil organism.  Since it is an endospore-forming long rod, it survives many environmental conditions.

Staphylococcus epidermidis (S. epi.) colonizes the skin surface.  It tolerates the high salt concentration and relative dryness of such an environment.

In order to appreciate the aseptic technique, you must consider any organism, no matter how common, to be a potential pathogen (agent of disease).  Indeed, in great enough numbers and achieving the appropriate portal of entry, almost any bacterium can induce an infection.

The organisms grown in pure culture for laboratory study are grown on a growth medium, which may be a liquid broth or a solid agar slant.  A particular medium may be designed to contain only the minimum requirements for growth of a specific organism.  This would be called “ minimal media” for that organism.  If one needs to encourage rapid growth of a very small sample of organisms, an enriched medium may be used, reinforced with growth factors required by fastidious organisms.  Typically, common organisms are grown on a standardized beef extract or protein base containing requirements for most bacterial species.  Nutrient media and tryptic soy media are examples.

READ THIS ENTIRE PROCEDURE AND WATCH IT DEMONSTRATED.  PRACTICE WITH EMPTY TUBES BEFORE ATTEMPTING THE TRANSFER!!!
 
PROCEDURE

You and your partner will be given six test tubes of sterile medium.  Three will be solid agar slants and three will be broth tubes.

1. First, label the tubes with the following information:  Name, date, and the name of organism to be inoculated.  Prepare a tube of broth and a tube of agar for each of the three bacterial species available.
   
2. Place the tubes in a rack and turn on the Bacti-Cinerator nearest your lab team.  It should heat for ten minutes before use.  Get the inoculation loop from your drawer.  (Make sure the loop has an insulated handle)
   
3. The inoculation loop is to be inserted into the chamber without touching the sides.  It should be deep enough to heat the loop end of the holder.  ( This end of the holder is often a source of contamination).  Hold the loop in the chamber long enough for the wire to turn red along it’s entire length.  This should take about ten seconds.  As the wire glows red, it is sterilized.  The procedure just described applies to any part of this lab manual wherein the phrase “heat-sterilize” the loop occurs.  Do not turn the inoculation loop handle loose while the loop is inside the chamber.  Such a “bad-habit” of resting the loop within the chamber causes the handle to heat to burning temperatures and also damages the chamber.  The Bacti-Cinerator may be left on for the duration of the lab as long as heat- sterilization is required.
   
4. Choose a stock culture and a correspondingly labeled sterile tube.  Hold both in the left hand, with the culture closest to you.  (Reverse these instructions if you are left-handed).  The instructor will demonstrate.
   
5. Loosen the caps until they will just lift off.  Do not uncover the tubes at this point.
   
6. Hold the inoculation loop in your right hand, heat sterilize the wire.  Angle the wire so that it glows red through its entire length.
   
7. The loop is now sterile.  Let it cool a few seconds.
   
8. Crook the little of the right hand around the cap of the stock culture and the third or fourth finger around the cap of the sterile tube.
   
9. Lift both simultaneously from the tubes, angle the tops of the tubes into the mouth of the Bacti-Cinerator.  This procedure hits the air at the neck of the tubes so that environmental organisms do not fall into and contaminate the tubes.  Keep the caps in place between your fingers, taking care not to palm them or turn them up.  (Never put the caps down on the lab table, this would contaminate them and also the lab table).  
   
10. Lower the now-cooled loop just below the surface of a broth stock culture, or gently touch the loop to a bacterial colony if working from a stock agar slant. You are taking a tiny sample of organisms from the stock culture.  This sample is referred to as the inoculum. 
    
11. Withdraw the loop without touching the sides of the tube.
    
12. Move the loop directly into the adjacent sterile tube.
    
13. If this second tube is broth, lower the loop below the surface, shake gently, and withdraw as before.  If this tube is an agar slant, go the deepest part of the slanted agar surface, lightly place the loop directly on the agar surface, and withdraw the loop while gently stroking side-to-side.  DO NOT EVER DIG INTO THE AGAR.  You need not see any bacteria on the loop or on the agar surface.  Remember—they are too small to be seen with the unaided eye.  They will produce visible colonies as they grow.
    
14. Reheat the tube tops, then recap. 
    
15. Heat-sterilize the loop, let it cool enough to put down without burning the surface.
    
16. Tighten the caps fully, then loosen by one turn and return the tubes to the rack.
    

     Two errors commonly made involve handling of the loop.  If it has not cooled enough before touching broth or agar, a sizzling sound will be heard.  This produces aerosols of living bacteria, which contaminate the environment, and can reduce the chance of viability of the transferred specimen.  If the loop drags against the glass on withdrawal, a strong vibration sprays living bacteria into the air.

     When you finish, place your cultures in the common rack (designated by the instructor) for incubation at 37 degrees C.  The cultures will be incubated for 48 hours and you will use them for the next two lab sessions in order to learn staining techniques.

FOR TESTING PURPOSES:  In order to test the quality of aseptic technique, a sterile transfer may be made between two sterile media tubes.  If no growth occurs in either tube following 48 hours of incubation, the technique is adequate.