"The_Warrior" <almahdi at magma.ca> wrote in message
news:sYadnY5g8ohSFbvfRVn-pg at magma.ca...
> Hello every one, I'm a biology student in a University, and I truelly need
> your assistance in choosing a good topic for an undergraduate microbiology
> project. We tried isolating and quantitatively analyzing bacteria from
> common uncooked food products found in a grocery store such as chicken
> meat,
> fish, beef, and yogurt as a control.
>How about something I'm doing with one of my practical classes at the
moment - isolating light-producing bacteria from fish. You need liquid and
solid artificial sea water medium (I won't bother posting the recipes unless
you decide to do it) and fresh, untreated sea fish with the skins on. One
method involves taking a slice of fish, JUST covering it with liquid ASW in
an oxygen-permeable container and then leaving it at 4-8C for a few days.
The other (older) method involves just scraping a sterile needle down the
skin of the fish and then streaking this onto ASW agar. Incubate at room
temp or at 4-8C. Wait for things to glow in the dark (you need real
darkness), then streak one of the glowing colonies until you get pure
cultures. my students are comparing growth conditions such as temperature,
substrate (glycerol, glucose, acetate, that sort of thing), commercial ASW
vs our own recipe, and dissolved oxygen levels. If things go well, you can
end up with cultures like the one on this web page
http://kuenen.bt.tudelft.nl/page6.html .
Lesley Robertson
