Polystyrene plates for culturing yeast

**shanecb** · 03-02-2011, 10:01 PM

It seems like most people use glass for culturing yeast. I have a couple of sleeves of polystyrene tissue culture dishes (Falcon 353002) that I was hoping to use. Would I follow the same procedure? Would they hold up fine in a pressure cooker for sterilization? I've not used polystyrene dishes for anything before.

Thanks!

**MalFet** · 03-03-2011, 12:40 AM

Polystyrene is not typically autoclavable. Sorry dude. Polypropylene usually is, and that's only a couple of letters off...

...not that that helps you.

**GNBrews** · 03-03-2011, 12:46 AM

As MalFet said, unfortunately, no they are not autoclavable. They are typically sold as sterile out of the package, and are considered disposable.

theredben · 03-03-2011, 12:57 AM

We use the polystyrene ones at work all the time. Assuming they say sterile on the packaging, as long as you keep the individual dishes closed they are still good. The nice thing about plating is that when you have infection, it is obvious. In liquid culture it is much more of a guessing game.

**shanecb** · 03-03-2011, 05:34 PM

Yep, the plates say sterile. Would I be able to just sterilize the agar medium in another glass container, then transfer it to the sterile polystyrene dishes? I'll just buy some glass dishes if it ends up making things easier, but if there's a simple way to make use of the polystyrene then I would.

**GNBrews** · 03-03-2011, 06:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shanecb

Yep, the plates say sterile. Would I be able to just sterilize the agar medium in another glass container, then transfer it to the sterile polystyrene dishes? I'll just buy some glass dishes if it ends up making things easier, but if there's a simple way to make use of the polystyrene then I would.

Absolutely. Just make sure to follow proper procedures for preparing the plates (google: preparing petri dishes).

Here's a good video of the process: http://www.mushroomvideos.com/Agar-Petri-Dishes

**shanecb** · 07-21-2011, 04:22 AM

I'm going to prepare some slants sometime soon I think. Now, I have access to a lot of sterile polystyrene and polypropylene stuff at work that I can make use of, which I think I'll do if it sounds like this is a viable plan (I have lab experience but not really anything to do with culturing media like this). I plan to make a ~4% agar media with 100ml wort and 4g agar, which I'll sterilize in a beaker that's covered in foil. After sterilization, I'm going to let it cool down to the point I can handle it, then use a sterile (I think it's polystyrene) syringe to transfer the appropriate amount of agar into the tubes I'm going to use for slants. They're sterile Nunc CryoTubes. EDIT: do I have the option of freezing these in the -80C freezers at work in any fashion? I'm going for long-term viability as much as possible.

So, does that sound doable? I have a pack of 2mL CryoTubes sitting around my house at the moment, but I'm guessing that's too small? Would 5mL be more usable?

My one concern is contamination transferring the agar media into the tubes from the beaker. I'll be using all sterilized equipment and taking as many precautions as I can (working quickly), but I'd still be concerned.