One of my colleges is working with a anaerobic chamber to culture Clostridium, but for several weeks he had problems to obtain growth of. He suspects that there is a problem with the chamber and he asked me if I know any oxygen indicator, a colorimetric or another kind or chemical indicator that he can put inside the chamber to detect any oxygen. Can anyone help him?
Oxoid sell anaerobic indicator strips which are impregnated with resazurin, a redox indicator, which change colour to indicate partially (pink) and fully (colourless) anaerobic conditions when opened inside the chamber (http://goo.gl/YqKaD). However in my experience the best way is to install an O2 and H2 analyser (e.g. http://goo.gl/pjQ6J) which will indicate in ppm the exact level of O2 (and H2 in % if using gas mix for catalysts). A cheap alternative to both is to add a few drops of resazurin reagent (final conc. 1mg/L) to anaerobic medium and leave the top off. If only partial anoxia exists inside the chamber, the medium will be pink; if fully anoxic it will turn colourless. Note that a transition back to pink from colourless is possible only once in the event that conditions become less anoxic. Hope this helps.
Thank you for your answers. I will tell it to my college tomorrow.
Methylene blue is a redox indicator. It is blue when in an oxidizing environment and will turn colorless under the presence of a reducing agent.or If you have some streakly aerobic culture then you can streak on some agar and incubate in anaerobic jar if your chamber is working properly then that aerobic culture should not grow.
is methylene blue can work as resazurin? please help me
@Mohamed: In my understanding any indicator cannot help with the control (determination) of residual O2 in an anaerobic chamber because of very slow penetration of gas phase inside of a chamber into a vessel with resazurin solution. Theoretically, you may speed up gas balancing between an indicator solution and gas phase within an anaerobic chamber by the placing of a vessel on a magnetic stirrer inside of a chamber. However, the cost of pO2 electrode might be very close to the price of a magnetic stirrer while the efficiency of a pO2 electrode is significantly higher. IB
Dear Igor Brown i make anaerobic media by closing thioglucolate media vial and placing 2 syringes into the rubber cap until the media turned from pink to yellow then i purged nitrogen gas into the vial through syringe also till the the whole media still yellow. note : without nitrogen purge there will be a pink ring in the upper phase. i ask if methylene blue ca n work as resazurin coz it's cheaper than resazurin
A whatman filter paper dipped in Resazurin solution and dried may act as anaerobic indicator strip or any thing extra should be added? pls suggest ...
Even i have the same question as Manjunath Kori & Fazlollah Madani Sani
if anyone can answer, do revert soon.
Fazlollah Madani Sani
did you find the answer to your question?.