Influence of bovine blood serum on growth properties of nutrient media for <i>Mycoplasma gallisepticum</i> and <i>Mycoplasma synoviae</i> cultivation

Abstract

The growth properties of the nutrient medium for the cultivation of pathogenic mycoplasmas depend on the type of blood serum it is supplemented with. Comparative tests of two cell-free nutrient media supplemented with bovine and porcine blood sera for the cultivation of strains “S6” Mycoplasma gallisepticum and “WVU 1853” Mycoplasma synoviae were performed. Growth properties of the tested nutrient media were assessed by determining the activity of the resulting biomass in the hemagglutination and agglutination assays, as well as by determining the concentration of viable cells after the 9th passage. It has been shown that a cell-free nutrient medium supplemented with the porcine blood serum is optimal for the cultivation of pathogenic mycoplasma species causing infectious diseases in birds. The hemagglutinating activity of the Mycoplasma gallisepticum culture reached 5 HAU log2 after 72 hours of cultivation, the agglutinating activity of Mycoplasma synoviae reached 5 AU log2 during the 88-hour incubation period, the concentration of viable cells of both strains was 106 CFU/cm3. The low growth properties of the medium prepared with the addition of bovine blood serum are most likely associated with its biochemical composition, which contains 5–20 times more provitamin A than the porcine blood serum, and high density lipoprotein cholesterol. On the contrary, in the porcine blood serum, most of the lipoproteins have a low density, containing a large amount of fatty acids and cholesterol, which are the main structural elements of mycoplasma cells. The obtained test results are of practical value and can be used in the technology of cultivation of pathogenic species of avian mycoplasmas in the production of diagnostic and preventive tools.

Keywords

• <i>mycoplasma gallisepticum</i>
• <i>mycoplasma synoviae</i>
• nutrient medium
• cultivation
• blood serum