Trace elements increase replicability of microbial growth
Trace elements are often omitted from chemically defined growth media. From established properties of trace elements, we deduce that this omission makes experiments unnecessarily sensitive to unavoidable contamination with trace elements. We confirm this experimentally by growing 11 bacterial strain...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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The Royal Society
2025-01-01
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| Series: | Open Biology |
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| Online Access: | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsob.240301 |
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| author | Amit Shimoga Nadig Rotem Gross Tobias Bollenbach Gerrit Ansmann |
| author_facet | Amit Shimoga Nadig Rotem Gross Tobias Bollenbach Gerrit Ansmann |
| author_sort | Amit Shimoga Nadig |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Trace elements are often omitted from chemically defined growth media. From established properties of trace elements, we deduce that this omission makes experiments unnecessarily sensitive to unavoidable contamination with trace elements. We confirm this experimentally by growing 11 bacterial strains in high replicate with and without supplementing trace elements, keeping all other conditions as fixed as possible to isolate the effect of trace elements. We find that supplementing trace elements considerably reduces variability of growth even in this benign scenario, and we argue that typical experimental set-ups exacerbate this. We discuss implications for the design and use of trace-element supplements and in particular argue that their use should be standard practice, as they can reduce variability of almost all experiments using chemically defined media, taking a step towards greater precision and replicability in microbiology. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-a55ccda9922d4e1bb08af03adcc00f3a |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2046-2441 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | The Royal Society |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Open Biology |
| spelling | doaj-art-a55ccda9922d4e1bb08af03adcc00f3a2025-01-29T00:07:10ZengThe Royal SocietyOpen Biology2046-24412025-01-0115110.1098/rsob.240301Trace elements increase replicability of microbial growthAmit Shimoga Nadig0Rotem Gross1Tobias Bollenbach2Gerrit Ansmann3Institute for Biological Physics, University of Cologne, Zülpicher Straße 77, Köln 50937, GermanyInstitute for Biological Physics, University of Cologne, Zülpicher Straße 77, Köln 50937, GermanyInstitute for Biological Physics, University of Cologne, Zülpicher Straße 77, Köln 50937, GermanyInstitute for Biological Physics, University of Cologne, Zülpicher Straße 77, Köln 50937, GermanyTrace elements are often omitted from chemically defined growth media. From established properties of trace elements, we deduce that this omission makes experiments unnecessarily sensitive to unavoidable contamination with trace elements. We confirm this experimentally by growing 11 bacterial strains in high replicate with and without supplementing trace elements, keeping all other conditions as fixed as possible to isolate the effect of trace elements. We find that supplementing trace elements considerably reduces variability of growth even in this benign scenario, and we argue that typical experimental set-ups exacerbate this. We discuss implications for the design and use of trace-element supplements and in particular argue that their use should be standard practice, as they can reduce variability of almost all experiments using chemically defined media, taking a step towards greater precision and replicability in microbiology.https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsob.240301growth mediatrace elementsreplicabilityreproducibilitymicrobiology methods |
| spellingShingle | Amit Shimoga Nadig Rotem Gross Tobias Bollenbach Gerrit Ansmann Trace elements increase replicability of microbial growth Open Biology growth media trace elements replicability reproducibility microbiology methods |
| title | Trace elements increase replicability of microbial growth |
| title_full | Trace elements increase replicability of microbial growth |
| title_fullStr | Trace elements increase replicability of microbial growth |
| title_full_unstemmed | Trace elements increase replicability of microbial growth |
| title_short | Trace elements increase replicability of microbial growth |
| title_sort | trace elements increase replicability of microbial growth |
| topic | growth media trace elements replicability reproducibility microbiology methods |
| url | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsob.240301 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT amitshimoganadig traceelementsincreasereplicabilityofmicrobialgrowth AT rotemgross traceelementsincreasereplicabilityofmicrobialgrowth AT tobiasbollenbach traceelementsincreasereplicabilityofmicrobialgrowth AT gerritansmann traceelementsincreasereplicabilityofmicrobialgrowth |