Oxygen tolerance in anaerobic pathogenic bacteria

A prerequisite for successful identification of anaerobic pathogenic bacteria from samples of clinical material is the method of cultivation. Currently, several methods of cultivation in anaerobic environment are used: cultivation in anaerobic box, anaerobic jar, and in nonrecurring cultivation system. Here, we determined the suitability of the above methods of cultivation using the estimation of the growth (diameters of colony size) of commonly isolated anaerobic pathogens (Bacteroides fragilis, Clostridium difficile, and Clostridium perfringens). The tested bacterial strains were exposed to atmospheric oxygen for various time periods and then they were cultivated using different anaerobic cultivation systems. Maximum growth differed, depending on the type of cultivation and the strain used. Thus, largest zone diameters, in the majority of measurements, were achieved in the anaerobic box. However, nonrecurring cultivation system seemed better in several cases; this applied to the cultivation of C. perfringens after 15, 30, and 60 min exposure to atmospheric oxygen as well as the cultivation of B. fragilis after 30 and 60 min of oxygen exposure. The cultivation in anaerobic box was the most convenient method for growth of C. difficile. In almost all cases, higher growth was observed in nonrecurring cultivation system than in the system of anaerobic jar. On the other hand, no significant differences were observed among these anaerobic cultivation systems which confirmed their applicability (taking into account some individual features concerning the optimization of cultivations) for identification of pathogenic anaerobes.