Application

Enumerating Microbial Fermentations

Microbial fermentation processes are expensive and require the management of a number of variables. By closely monitoring the process, it can be optimized and costly problems can be avoided. A powerful tool for supporting fermentation applications is an accurate and timely method to determine the total number of microbial cells. The Micro PRO™ (next generation RBD) is also used to evaluate starter cultures and byproducts for contaminants and cell concentrations.

Key Benefits:

• The Micro PRO™ provides reliable and quantitative results in 4 minutes; it also saves a significant amount of technician labor.
• Micro PRO™ testing can be applied at various phases throughout the process, including:
  • Upstream – For media contamination, starter culture viability, and/or titer
  • Fermentation – For process monitoring of total biomass and/or total viable cells
  • Downstream – To determine cell concentrations for optimizing the fermentation process and to evaluate byproduct
• The system accurately enumerates a broad range of microorganisms, including fastidious organisms that are difficult to enumerate with traditional methods.
• Reagent kits are available for enumeration of total biomass, or total viable organisms.
• The Micro PRO™ is fully automated. Up to 42 samples can be loaded at one time and the system automatically performs reagent additions, mixing, and sample injection.
• The Micro PRO™ counts/mL correlate exceptionally well with the traditional cfu/mL.
• A broad spectrum of technical and validation support services are also available.

Figure 1. Correlation of Micro PRO™ Viable Counts vs. Plate Counts of B. atrophaeus 9372, C. albicans 10231, Escherichia coli 25922 and M. bovis 25025.

Source: Reif, J. M., A. M. Steger and K. A. Molitor. 2006. Automated rapid and accurate enumeration of viable microorganisms in pure cultures using the Micro PRO™. Society for Industrial Microbiology Annual Meeting. 

Figure 1 demonstrates how well the Micro PRO™ counts correlate with the traditional plate method throughout the dynamic range of 101 to 106 cfu/mL.

Microorganism	Number of Samples	R2
Bacillus atrophaeus	25	0.986
Candida albicans	30	0.976
Escherichia coli	34	0.993
Mycoplasma bovis	23	0.974

 

Back to Top

 

Links:

Technical Resources Library System Overview Contact Us Service & Support