Wolfram - 23-11-2004 at 10:01
What is "minimal medium" as you understand it?
chemoleo - 23-11-2004 at 10:08
Do you want a list of contents?
Normal rich medium is with bacteriotryptone, yeast extracts and such things. They thus contain a lot of the metabolites already premade (sugars, amino
acids etc).
While minimal medium is minimal in the sense that it everything is added manually. I.e. Salts, certain metals (Mn, Fe, Se, etc), phosphate, Mg/Ca,
glucose as a carbon source, ammonium chloride as a nitrogen source, and a vitamin cocktail.
This is often used for labelling proteins, i.e. with isotopes such as 15N, 13 C, or with selenomethionine (rather than normal methionine) for
crystallography.
Disadvantage - the cells dont grow so well (naturally- everything, the from the simple lipids to amino acids to sugars has to be synthesised from
ammonium chloride/glucose). Expression of cloned proteins is generally worse. But often there is no way past it.
[Edited on 23-11-2004 by chemoleo]
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Wolfram - 23-11-2004 at 10:33
Ok it is like I have suspected. I have used the wrong term for the wrong thing.
Is there any special word for a medium which is so diluted so it supports lifefunctions but not celldivision.