Comparison of Bifidobacteria Selective Media for the Detection of Bifidobacteria in Korean Commercial Fermented Milk Products

This study was carried out to compare the efficacy and selectivity of TOS and BS media for enumeration of bifidobacteria in commercial fermented milk products. First, bifidobacteria was isolated from 20 fermented milk products, and all isolated bifidobacteria were identified by genomic technology as Bifidobacterium lactis. The two media significantly differed from each other with regard to the recovery of B. lactis, that is, the recovery of this organism was as much as 6 logs lower on BS medium than on TOS. When the concentration of BS solution (mixture of paromomycin sulfate, neomycin, sodium propionate, and lithium chloride) used in BS medium was reduced to 50% (BS50), a relatively high percentage recovery of bifidobacteria from pure cultures was achieved. Susceptibility tests to antibiotics and tests for selective agents for the isolated bifidobacteria and lactic acid bacteria were conducted. The BS solution inhibited some lactic acid bacteria and Bifidobacterium species, while mupirocin (MU) suppressed the growth of all tested lactic acid bacteria but not Bifidobacterium. As compared with BS50 medium, TOS with or without MU showed good bifidobacteria recovery and readily distinguishable colonies; in particular, TOS supplemented with MU had a high selectivity for bifidobacteria. In conclusion, all results suggested that TOS medium with or without MU was found to be suitable for selective enumeration of bifidobacteria from mixed cultures in fermented milk, and better in that capacity than BS medium.