Visualizing Bacterial Motility Based on a Color Reaction

Summary

Here, we present a protocol to detect bacterial motility based on a color reaction. Key advantages of this method are that it is easy to evaluate and more accurate, and does not require specialized equipment.

Abstract

Bacterial motility is crucial for bacterial pathogenicity, biofilm formation, and drug resistance. Bacterial motility is crucial for the invasion and/or dissemination of many pathogenic species. Therefore, it is important to detect bacterial motility. Bacterial growth conditions, such as oxygen, pH, and temperature, can affect bacterial growth and the expression of bacterial flagella. This can lead to reduced motility or even loss of motility, resulting in the inaccurate evaluation of bacterial motility. Based on the color reaction of 2,3,5-triphenyl tetrazolium chloride (TTC) by intracellular dehydrogenases of living bacteria, TTC was added to traditional semisolid agar for bacterial motility detection. The results showed that this TTC semisolid agar method for the detection of bacterial motility is simple, easy to operate, and does not involve large and expensive instruments. The results also showed that the highest motility was observed in semisolid medium prepared with 0.3% agar. Compared with the traditional semisolid medium, the results are easier to evaluate and more accurate.

Introduction

Bacterial motility plays a critical role in bacterial pathogenicity, biofilm formation, and drug resistance¹. Bacterial motility is closely associated with pathogenicity and is necessary for bacterial colonization during early infection of host cells². Biofilm formation is closely related to bacterial motility, where bacteria adhere to the surface of solid media through motility. Bacterial motility has long been considered to be positively correlated with biofilm formation. A high degree of bacterial drug resistance due to biofilm can lead to persistent infections that are a threat to human health³

Protocol

1. Preparation of semisolid medium

1. Traditional semisolid agar
   1. Prepare the traditional semisolid agar according to the bacterial motility test medium recipe using the basic ingredients¹¹. Dissolve 10 g of Tryptose, 15 g of NaCl, 4 g of agar in enough distilled water, adjust the pH to 7.2 ± 0.2, and make up the final volume to 1,000 mL.
   2. Autoclave the agar at 121 °C for 20 min, and dispense it into 10 mL test tubes as a 3-cm high semisolid medium.
2. Traditional semisolid agar with TTC
   1. After autoclaving the conventional ....

Results

Both standard strains and isolated strains were compared for motility detection, and the results are shown in Table 1. Due to the absence of flagella, Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella pneumoniae only grew along the inoculated line on both traditional and TTC semisolid media. In contrast, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, and Salmonella typhimurium showed growth in all directions around the inoculated line after culturing for 24 h on TTC semisolid m.......

Discussion

The detection of bacterial motility by the semisolid medium method is affected by many factors^13,14. Bacterial growth conditions, such as oxygen (aerobic on agar surface, nonaerobic at the bottom of the tube with the semisolid medium), pH, and temperature, can affect the viability of bacterial flagella, which can lead to reduced motility or even loss of motility¹⁵. In addition, some mucus-type bacteria as their motility can be affected by .......

Materials

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Bacto Agar	Difco
Escherichia coli	ATCC	ATCC25922	Positive control
Pseudomonas aeruginosa	ATCC	ATCC27853	Positive control
Salmonella typhimurium	ATCC	ATCC14028	Positive control
Staphylococcus aureus	ATCC	ATCC25923	Negative nonmotile control
Tryptose	OXOID
TTC	Sigma	298-96-4
VITEK 2 automated microbial identification system	Bio Mérieux