ANTIBIOTIC ASSAY MEDIUM NO. 6 (VEG.)

Antibiotic Veg Assay Medium No. 6 is prepared by incorporating vegetable peptones in place of animal peptones, making the medium BSE-TSE risks free. This can be used for the same purpose of Antibiotic Assay Medium No. 6, a common medium for the assay of various antibiotics. Antibiotic Assay media are used in the performance of antibiotic assays. Grove and Randall have elaborately elucidated the methods to perform these assays and various media used for that. Schmidt and Moyer have reported the use of antibiotic assay medium for the liquid formulation used in the performance of antibiotic assay.
These media are recommended by USP and FDA. This broth is a modification of animal based Antibiotic Assay Medium No. 6 and is also used for sterility checking procedures of several preparations. It can be used for inoculum development and spore induction of Bacillus subtilis for antibiotic assay. Manganese is known to influence and enhance sporulation in the Bacillus species. Thermophilic bacteria such as Bacillus stearothermophilus are capable of growth at 55 – 65?C while an incubation period of 30 to 35?C is favourable for culture and sporulation of mesophilic spore formers. It has been reported that organisms recovered from spoilage of foods such as fruit drinks, tomatoes, acidified onions and other canned foods sporulate well aerobically on nutrient agar with added manganese.

for induction of spore production in Bacillus subtilis strains used in antibiotic assay