Question

Axenic culture is
(A) Culture of tissue
(B) Culture of genes
(C) Pure culture without contamination
(D) Pure culture of microbes without any external nutrients.

Answer 1

Hint: Axenic is defined as the state of the culture in which the particular species or the variety or the strain of the particular organism is only present in the culture without the existence of any other microorganism. This type of culture is possible for both unicellular microorganisms and also multicellular organisms.

Complete Answer:
- This axenic culture is mainly followed for the microorganisms like bacteria and other unicellular eukaryotic organisms.
- In this culture, the organisms are taken and it is diluted to produce many subsamples. The dilution of the culture is made in such a way that the subsamples correctly contains only one organism in case of the asexual organisms or two organisms in case of sexual organisms.
- These subsamples are cultured to produce the pure axenic culture. The culture medium is checked periodically in order to find whether the culture is contaminated or in the axenic condition.

After that the culture is checked for its contamination. The sample is kept on the agar plate. Since the agar is the enriching medium for the growth of microorganisms, the contaminating organisms grow by getting the nutrients from it. If the culture is pure, no organisms grow from the agar plate.

Note: This culture is mainly used for the purpose of the study of the characteristics of the parasitic and the symbiotic organisms in the controlled culture condition. For example, this is used in the culture of entamoeba, fungi growth in the lichens etc.