Sabouraud Dextrose Medium (without Membrane Filter)

Principle And Interpretation

Field of Application: Waste water, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, packing material. DriFilter Membrane Nutrient Pad Medium is ready to use sterile culture media in the form of a 50 mm biological inert absorbent pads impregnated with Sabouraud Dextrose medium, then dried and sterilized in 55 mm petri plate. They eliminate the need of laborious media preparation and autoclaving procedures. The nutrient pads are to be just rewetted with sterile distilled water and are ready to use. Use of nutrient pads allows larger sample volumes to be tested at a time. Interpretation of results is directly by counting the CFUs and also quantifies the microbial load present in the sample. Sabouraud Dextrose Medium is Carliers modification (1) of the formulation described by Sabouraud (2) for the cultivation of fungi (yeasts, moulds), particularly useful for the fungi associated with skin infections. This medium is also employed to determine microbial contamination in food, cosmetics, and clinical specimens (3). Mycological peptone provides nitrogenous compounds. Dextrose provides an energy source. High dextrose concentration and low pH favours fungal growth and inhibits contaminating bacteria from test samples (4). Some pathogenic fungi may produce infective spores which are easily dispersed in air, so examination should be carried out in safety cabinet. For heavily contaminated samples, the plate must be supplemented with inhibitory agents for inhibiting bacterial growth with lower pH.