Culture of Tissue & Fluids

Tissue and biopsy specimens should be collected aseptically, placed in ice-cold sterile saline (PBS) or transport media in 50 cc screw-cap conical tubes or comparable containers and kept on ice. The samples should be sealed and placed in a bubble-cushioned mailing envelope with an ice pack and shipped to RRDA as soon as possible.

Urine specimens for culture should be refrigerated if they will not be received by RRDA within one hour of collection.

At RRDA, for liver, kidney, spleen, lung, urine and other normally sterile tissues and fluids, tissue homogenates or fluids are plated onto 5% sheep blood agar and incubated in 7% CO₂. Selective differential media may be used as necessary. For blood culture, a diluted sample is inoculated into brain heart infusion broth with 0.05% SPS under CO₂. Subcultures are plated onto blood agar at 24 hrs and 7 days of incubation.