At a practical level, microbiology can be split between pathogen testing and quality testing, i.e. those organisms that will cause product spoilage and stability issues.  It is also possible to draw a line between true cultural techniques and those utilizing growth as the reporter but adapting the presentation of the media to include devices other than Petri dishes, and invariably an instrument of some description, here we are just going to focus on novel cultural media.

As a general rule, with the exception of fungal tests, most quality indicator organisms can be reported within 48 hours utilizing traditional media inoculated direct from a homogonized sample. These media formulations have been relatively unchanged for at least the last twenty-five years with efficacy largely empirically derived.

In terms of time to result, the same cannot be said for the pathogens. With the requirement for more sensitive detection limits, an enrichment stage, or stages, need to be included followed by confirmatory tests. This not only extends the time to result, (and this can be up to seven days for Salmonella spp and Listeria spp), but also increases labor and consumable costs. With commercial pressures acting to reduce the reporting timeframe, traditional growth media formulations began to evolve.

Leading this change away from traditional, empirically derived selective and diagnostic features were the chromogenic and fluorogenic plating media. Such media allowed species specific diagnostic features to be designed into direct plating media that would previously have required sub-culture and further testing. An early example would be the inclusion of the fluorogenic substrate methylumbelliferone -β -D-glucoronide (MUG) into bile salt media for the specific diagnosis of E.coli amongst lactose fermenting, bile tolerant Gram negative flora.

Chromogenic substrates followed closely, allowing colour to report the presence of specific species amongst closely related accompanying flora. Early examples were designed to report extra-cellular enzymatic activity and as such the reactions were not colony associated and diffusion of the colour into the surrounding media occurred. As with all emerging technologies there were some early problems and the regulatory framework was slow to adopt the novel media. However the take-home message for microbiologists was clear; cultural techniques could now be used to reduce extended reporting timescales by making species specific diagnostics available on primary plating media.

The latest generation of chromogenic media take this even further. From an improved understanding of genotype and gene expression, specific intra-cellular enzyme systems are targeted with substrates that produce colony associated colour reactions. Also, combining enzyme/substrate systems within the same medium allows differential diagnosis to take place, e.g. UTI media that can report the presence of 2 or 3 target groups of organisms on one plate.

The regulatory acceptance has also moved on with ISO standards now incorporating chromogenic media. The very latest innovation addresses the reduction of the time taken to enrich target pathogens in recovery systems designed to lead into chromogenic diagnostic media. By combining a toxin and a substrate, rather than a chromogen and a substrate it is now possible to specifically inhibit a competitor species within a recovery system. If that recovery system also contains specific growth promoters for the target species then the result is faster growth promotion allowing earlier inoculation onto specifically designed chromogenic plating medium.

Such systems designed for Salmonella spp and Listeria spp allow diagnostic recovery within 48 hours as opposed to a more typical 5 day test.  These cultural techniques have addressed the commercial pressures to report earlier on the microbiological status of valuable inventory.