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Floating‐loop Replica‐plating Device
Author(s) -
WIBERG J. S.
Publication year - 1977
Publication title -
journal of applied bacteriology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.889
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1365-2672
pISSN - 0021-8847
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2672.1977.tb00712.x
Subject(s) - float (project management) , rod , petri dish , float glass , materials science , computer science , optics , engineering , physics , composite material , marine engineering , biology , medicine , alternative medicine , pathology , genetics
1 The main feature of this device is its ‘floating loops’, which are thin wires formed into loops at one end and mounted in a frame such that the wires are free to move up and down. This feature was incorporated into the ‘applicator’devised by Tarr (1958) for phage‐typing, but has not been as widely used as it merits. The present device was developed independently, without knowledge of Tarr's applicator, and is described here partly to emphasize the advantages of floating loops, and partly to offer an alternative to Tarr's device, both in design and in usage. 2 Floating loops confer two main advantages over other types of device that pick up droplets of organism suspensions on the ends of rigidly mounted metal rods: (a) a more uniform volume of suspension is delivered, and (b) the loops do not cut into the soft agar in the acceptor Petri dish, since they are very light and ‘float’on the agar. 3 The device applies 56 standard spots of phage to the surface of seeded agar plates; it has performed satisfactorily in thousands of tests over several years.