Scribd
Upload
480 views

7 Motility Determination by Hanging Drop Technique

This document describes the hanging drop technique used to determine bacterial motility. The key steps are: [1] Creating a thin layer of petroleum jelly around the edge of a cavity slide and applying jelly to the corners of a coverslip, [2] Adding a loopful of bacterial culture to the center of the coverslip and inverting it over the cavity slide, [3] Observing the bacteria at the edge of the hanging drop under a microscope and recording their size, shape and motility. The technique allows observation of living bacteria and determination of whether their movement represents true motility or random Brownian motion.

Uploaded by

Gaurav Mudadu
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
480 views

7 Motility Determination by Hanging Drop Technique

This document describes the hanging drop technique used to determine bacterial motility. The key steps are: [1] Creating a thin layer of petroleum jelly around the edge of a cavity slide and applying jelly to the corners of a coverslip, [2] Adding a loopful of bacterial culture to the center of the coverslip and inverting it over the cavity slide, [3] Observing the bacteria at the edge of the hanging drop under a microscope and recording their size, shape and motility. The technique allows observation of living bacteria and determination of whether their movement represents true motility or random Brownian motion.

Uploaded by

Gaurav Mudadu
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 5

Chapter 7 1

MOTILITY DETERMINATION BY
HANGING DROP TECHNIQUE
Aim: To study the bacterial motility by hanging drop technique
2
Requirement:
Cultures- Broth cultures (24 hours) of Proteus vulgaris and Escherichia coli
Chemicals- petroleum jelly
Apparatus- Bunsen burner, inoculating loop, cavity slide, cover slip
Equipment- microscope

Principle:
Living microorganism can be studied to determine the natural size and shape of cells, cellular arrangement,
motility, reactions to various chemicals and response to environmental factors. Wet mount and hanging drop
techniques are commonly used for direct examination of living microorganism (protozoa, bacteria, fungi)
Hanging drop technique is routinely used for study of bacterial motility. This technique has following
advantages:
1. It is easy to study the motility of the bacteria and is less time consuming.
2. It is surrounded by an air space hence capacity of aeration is increased.
3. It is also use for observation of size shape of micro organism in living state.
3
Disadvantages
1. This may be evaporated in short time.
2. In this techniques three different refractive indices
are involved in light path. Hence a good
microscopy is not possible with this preparation.
Flagella are responsible for the motility of bacteria
and this is called as organ of locomotion. The no. and
arrangement of flagella are characteristic of each
bacteria. Flagella may be arranged on a bacterial body
as a monotrichous, lophotrichous, amphitrichous or
peritrichous. It has 3 basic parts as filament, hook and
basal body.
Procedure: 4
1. Take a clean hanging drop slide and place
it on table. Using needle make a thing
layer of jelly on the periphery of cavity of
slide.
2. Clean a cover slip and apply pertroleum
jelly On each of the four corners of the
coverslip, using needle.
3. Transfer the loopful of the culture in the
centre of the cover slip. Invert the cavity
slide over the cover slip containing the
culture drop in such a manner that drops
comes in the centre of the cavity and
gently turn the slide.
4. Place the slide on the microscope stage
and carefully focus the edge of the drops
so that it appears across the centre of the
field.
Observation and results:
Observe the behaviour of MOs in the inner side of the drop edge and record the size, shape and 5
motility of the bacteria. Check whether the motility of MOs is true motility or Brownian
movement (vibrating or dancing movement of bacteria in suspension due to bombardment by
molecules of water)
The organism changes its position and moves from one place to another (true motility). Hence,
the given culture is motile.

You might also like