Fungal Culture Media

Nutrient media for abundant mycangial fungi

Additional media formulations can be found in the media table in the isolations database. Please add new media formulations to the table in the database.

• PDA: 39g PDA dried media from BD-Difco, 1L water, 10ml of Streptomycin (10,000 I.U./ML) & Penicillin (10,000 MCG/ML) mixture. To our experience, this produces richer cultures of mycangial fungi than other media. It’s also rather acidic and so prevents growth of many bacteria even without the antibiotics. Can add 5g of agar for harder media.
• YMEA: (4 g yeast extract, 10 g malt extract, 4 g dextrose, 15 g agar, 1L water), 10ml of Streptomycin (10,000 I.U./ML) & Penicillin (10,000 MCG/ML) mixture per 1L of media. Fungi grow slower than on PDA.
• MEA: same as YMEA, without the yeast extract.
• PYDA: 15g PDA, 10g Agar, 2g Yeast Extract, 1L Water.
• MYEA: 15g MEA, 10g Agar, 2g Yeast Extract, 1L Water.

Antibiotics

DO NOT AUTOCLAVE AGAR MEDIA WITH ANTIBIOTICS IN IT! Add when media has cooled down to touch.

Streptomycin/Penicillin: catalog #516106, supplied in powder. Mix into liquid media at a concentration of 100-200 ppm. For PDA, 100 mg/L is equivalent to 100ppm.

Add cycloheximide for Ophiostomatales, including Raffaelea (but not Ambrosiella). Kolarik & Hulcr (2008) used 0.1 mg/L cycloheximide to select for ophiostomatoid mycangial fungi, people use betweeen 0.1-0.5mb/L. We are using 0.5 mg/L cycloheximide in media.

Excessive growth of yeast (often on YMEA) can be prevented by slapping a chunk of agar on top of the inoculum.

All media containing antibiotics should be kept in darkness and cold temperature, to prevent degradation.

Sabouraud Dextrose media

Simple medium for testing utilization of various carbon sources.

Diana Six added 10g yeast extract to isolate Ambrosiella beaveri.

Minimal medium for Aspergillus, per liter

Barratt et al., 1965 Genetics 52:233-246

Adjust pH to ca 6.5 (usually requires 1 ml of 1 N NaOH). Can prepare 2OX stock solution of the above salts.