title: Automated agar plate streaker: a linear plater on Society for Biomolecular Sciences standard plates.
abstract: Several protocols for bacterial isolation and techniques for aerobic plate counting rely on the use of a spiral plater to deposit concentration gradients of microbial suspensions onto a circular agar plate to isolate colony growth. The advantage of applying a gradient of concentrations across the agar surface is that the original microbiological sample can be applied at a single concentration rather than as multiple serial dilutions. The spiral plater gradually dilutes the sample across a compact area and therefore saves time preparing dilutions and multiple agar plates. Commercial spiral platers are not automated and require manual sample loading. Dispensing of the sample volume and rate of gradients are often very limited in range. Furthermore, the spiral sample application cannot be used with rectangular microplates. Another limitation of commercial spiral platers is that they are useful only for dilute, filtered suspensions and cannot plate suspensions of coarse organic particles therefore precluding the use of many kinds of microorganism-containing substrata. An automated agar plate spreader capable of processing 99 rectangular microplates in unattended mode is described. This novel instrument is capable of dispensing discrete volumes of sample in a linear pattern. It can be programmed to dispense a sample suspense at a uniform application rate or across a decreasing concentration gradient.
authors.affiliation: Department of Research Operations, Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway, New Jersey 07065, USA. gregory_w_king@merck.com
authors.forename: Gregory W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: King
authors.forename: Gary S
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Kath
authors.forename: Sal
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Siciliano
authors.forename: Neal
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Simpson
authors.forename: Prakash
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Masurekar
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sigmund
authors.forename: Jon
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Polishook
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Skwish
authors.forename: Gerald
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bills
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Genilloud
authors.forename: Fernando
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Peláez
authors.forename: Jesus
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Martín
authors.forename: Claude
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Dufresne
mesh_terms: D000362:Agar; D001331:Automation; D003470:Culture Media; D008828:Microbiological Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012015:Reference Standards; D013048:Specimen Handling / Q000295:instrumentation*
chemical_list: D003470:Culture Media; D000362:Agar