Growth of Campylobacter using BMG LABTECH’s FLUOstar Omega equipped with ACU

Campylobacter jejuni was only properly linked with disease in the 1970’s when new culture methodologies were developed. C. jejuni has quite stringent requirements for growth, namely; a rich nutrient broth, temperatures of 37-42^oC, and microaerophilic conditions, i.e. oxygen reduced to 5-8% and carbon dioxide elevated to 10%.

Historically in our laboratory Campylobacter jejuni growth studies have been performed in shaking liquid cultures in 15 mL tubes maintained at 42^oC with 7% O₂ and 10% CO₂ in a variable atmosphere incubator (VAIN) cabinet; these are then removed temporarily from the incubator to take optical density readings at regular intervals. However this method has several limitations.

This application note describes a comparison of C. jejuni growth studies performed using the traditional method of tubes shaking in a VAIN with that of a study completed in a 96 well microplate format using a BMG LABTECH FLUOstar Omega plate reader equipped with the Atmospheric Control Unit (ACU) to independently control oxygen and carbon dioxide.