Enrichment Cultures: Culturing Aerobic and Anaerobic Microbes on Selective and Differential Medias

Prokaryotic cells are able to inhabit nearly every environment on this planet. As a kingdom, they possess a great metabolic diversity, allowing them to use a wide variety of molecules for energy generation (1). Therefore, when cultivating these organisms in the lab, all necessary and specific molecules required to make energy must be provided in the growth media. While some organisms are metabolically diverse, others are able to survive in extreme environments such as high or low temperatures, alkaline and acidic pH, reduced or oxygen absent environments, or environments containing high salt (2,3,4). Termed "extremophiles", these organisms often require these intense environments to proliferate. When scientists look to grow such organisms, the media components as well as any specific environmental conditions all need to be taken into account in order to successfully cultivate the organisms of interest.