Most of the culture media used in bacterial growth is composed of complex ingredients, increasing the value of the product. This makes its acquisition unavailable by educational institutions without sufficient funding, making even more difficult the practical teaching of microbiology. Therefore, the development of an alternative medium of simple composition and low-cost becomes necessary. This work aimed to use texturized soy protein (TSP) as a low cost culture medium that allows the bacterial growth. For the composition of the broths, concentrations between 0.5% and 10% were prepared. Thirty-eight bacteria, including important pathogens associated with food, were inoculated and the concentration of 7.5% TSP allowed the growth of 100% of the tested bacteria, with a production cost of approximately 86% and 68% lower than tryptic soy broth and agar, respectively. This work demonstrates that the use of a culture medium of easy acquisition and low cost is feasible and has good results.
Conventional culture media are expensive owing to their constituents. Thus, several studies have sought to develop and evaluate the efficacy of alternative, low-cost culture media, in most cases, using natural and easily accessible raw materials. The present study is a literature review, observing various formulations of culture media based on products of plant origin for the growth of microorganisms and production of microbial compounds of industrial interest. In most formulations, vegetable substrates, such as soy, certain beans, corn, and rice, were used in addition to hortofruticultural products. Compared to conventional media, the alternative culture media often present satisfactory results in terms of microbial growth efficiency and production cost.
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