Topic summary
Corynebacteria
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Corynebacterium.
Culture
Corynebacteria grow slowly, even on enriched media. In nutritional requirements, all need biotin to grow. Some strains also need thiamine and PABA. Some of the Corynebacterium species with sequenced genomes have between 2.5 and 3.0 million base pairs. The bacteria grow in Loeffler's medium, blood agar, and trypticase soy agar (TSA). They form small, grayish colonies with a granular appearance, mostly translucent, but with opaque centers, convex, with continuous borders. The color tends to be yellowish-white in Loeffler's medium. In TSA, they can form grey colonies with black centers and dentated borders that either resemble flowers (C. gravis), continuous borders (C. mitis), or a mix between the two forms (C. intermedium).