Improved media for the culture of Neisseria gonorrhoeae

The ANM medium of Hafiz and McEntegart (1976) was found to be deficient in ability to support the growth of various strains of N. gonorrhoeae. Strains that did grow required a large starting inoculum which invariably suffered a substantial drop in the number of viable organisms during the first 2 h. Investigation of the various deficiencies led to the development of liquid (G77L) and solid (G77S)media which were shown to have several advantages over existing media for the cultivation of N. gonorrhoeae. These media, which are simple to prepare, do not contain blood or serum and yet gave excellent growth. The inclusion of antibiotics, glucose and phenol red allowed the selective isolation and partial identification of N. gonorrhoeae from routine specimens. These media also gave good results in fermentation tests for the identification of neisseriae.