Microbial media has undergone several changes since its inception but some key challenges remain. In recent years, there has been exploration of several alternative nutrient sources, both to cater to the specificity in requirement of growth of “fussy microorganisms” and also to reduce costs for large-scale fermentation that is required for biotechnology. Our mini-review explores these developments and also points at lacunas in the present areas of exploration, such as a lack of concerted effort in pH and osmolarity regulation. We hope that our commentary provides direction for future research in microbial media.

Background

Microorganisms are almost omnipresent, very diverse and indispensable to human survival. Preparation of suitable culture media is one of the prerequisites to study them. Different microorganisms thrive at different environments and have variety of growth requirements; like nutrients, pH, osmotic conditions and temperature. Due to the lack of sufficient variability of media composition, replication of the exact environmental conditions in the laboratory, nearly 99% of all microorganisms are still unculterable, for example Trephonema pallidum, Candidatus liberibacter, Tropheryma whippelii, Bartonella henselae [1]. Given the current limitations of microbial growth in lab, formulation of newer media should be a much needed thrust area of modern biology.