I was wondering if it is possible to grow bread fungus in nutrient agar. I know you can grow bacteria there, but I was wondering if fungus would grow in there to.

What I really want to know is; Which one of the two (fungus or bacteria) relies more on nutrient agar to grow?

Thank you

-Serminigo

There are many kinds of "agar", agar usually refers to the more to the gelatinious state than to the nutritient composition.

 

There are also many kinds of bacteria and fungus, each having slightly different nutrition requirements.

 

Bread fungus, I assume you mean baking yeast(?) is S.Cerevisae and they are facultative anaerobes that are capable of both respiratory as well as fermentative growth. They typically grow 5-6 generations without oxygen, before the cellmembrans quality goes down. This is the same kind of yeast that's used to make beer and wine. It's just that they are all different strains with different flavour producing properties.

 

Limiting nutrients are typicall sugar, oxygen an free amino nitrogen.

 

Fermentable sugars for these baking strains are often fructose, glucose, sucrose, maltose and maltotriose. So making a agar on plain sucrose solution + some choice of amino acid blend is fine.

 

You typically see colonies after with your eye after just a few days at roomtemp.

 

So many bacterias as well as many yeasts grow well in agar. But to differentiate you obviously need different nutritient compositions.

 

They key is to look for the specific strains you are dealing with, and what their nutrition requirements are.

 

/Fredrik

By bread fungus I was actually referring to Rhizopus nigricans.

Well why not just try it yourself and see? I'm assuming by agar you mean LB agar.

I've certainly had (unwanted) fungus grow on LB agar before.

I've certainly had (unwanted) fungus grow on LB agar before.

 

It's a bit odd but the only time I had that happen to me was when I was using 3 different antibiotics in the media, and practicing extreem sterility. And I rarley work under very steril conditions.

 

Ampicillin, Kanamycin and chloramphenicol.

The fungus impressed me quite a bit so I let it grow for a long time before throwing it away. (Though I'm aware that most if not all of these antibiotics don't work against most fungi)