Ee. Debruyn et Te. Cloete, MEDIA FOR THE DETECTION OF SULFIDE-PRODUCING BACTERIA IN INDUSTRIAL WATER-SYSTEMS, Journal of microbiological methods, 17(4), 1993, pp. 261-271
The importance of sulphate-reducing bacteria (SRB) in microbiological
induced corrosion (MIC) has been widely recognized for many years [1].
There are many formulations of culture media used for enumerating SRB
[2,3]. Previous studies indicated that viable count procedures undere
stimated the in situ population by a factor of approximately 1000 comp
ared to in situ sulphate reduction activity [1,4]. The aim of this stu
dy was to evaluate different isolation media and carbon sources for th
e isolation and detection of SRB in South African industrial water sys
tems. Modified iron sulphite (IS) medium yielded the highest numbers w
hen used to enumerate SRB from pure cultures and industrial water samp
les. When comparing API, SABS, IS, Oxoid and modified synthetic medium
using pure cultures of Desulfovibrio desulfuricans IS-medium gave a 1
2.1%, 40%, 53.3% and 60.3% higher recovery than SABS-, Postgate-, API-
and synthetic medium, respectively (p <0.05). IS-medium gave a 20.1%,
61.8% and 100% higher recovery than SABS-, API- and Oxoid medium, res
pectively, when using pure cultures of Desulfotomaculum orientis (p <0
.05). The dominant sulphide-producing bacteria isolated from the indus
try using IS-medium were facultative aerobic gram-negative rods that w
ere able to produce sulphide from sulphite under strictly anaerobic co
nditions. IS-medium was therefore not selective for SRB only. H2S-prod
ucing bacteria that utilized lactate, acetate, formate or palmitic aci
d as different carbon sources were also isolated from industrial water
samples when using synthetic medium.