advantages and disadvantages of the serial dilution agar plate technique

The development of classical microbial methods, broth culture, plate count, serial dilution, enrichment and microbial identification over time has been described in the literature. From Pasteur’s discoveries to the Petri dish Questions that can be asked include: what does this understanding mean to the pharmaceutical microbiologist responsible for testing and releasing drug products? How does this apply to the challenge of evaluating, validating and implementing alternative methods to the compendial microbiological test methods? As a background to a general discussion of these questions amongst microbiologists, it is useful to review the history of the development of microbiological testing methods. This cultivability could range from 0.1 to 0.01% in oceanic microbiota to around 80% for the microbiota on the human forearm.

The advent of ribosomal RNA gene sequence analysis thirty years ago has significantly expanded our awareness of microbial diversity in water, air, soil and the human body and reemphasised that, overall, cultivable microorganisms represent less than 1% of the microorganisms observed by direct microscopic examination.

Advantages and disadvantages of the serial dilution agar plate technique