microbiology
A glossary of bench microbiology terms
Plain definitions of colony, lawn, streak, pellet, transformant and the other bench words a cloning afternoon depends on.
8 October 2026 · 10 min read
Tag
microbiology
Articles tagged microbiology. Tags group methods across clusters so a technique can be found from more than one route.
All topicsBuffers and laboratory water26Cell culture26Chromatography26Cold chain and sample storage26Cytometry and microscopy26DNA sequencing26Gels and blotting26Gene expression26Genome editing26Immunoassays26Laboratory labware26Laboratory safety26Liquid handling26Microbiology26Molecular cloning26Nucleic acid purification26PCR and amplification26Protein biochemistry26Proteomics26Research sourcing and study design26
cold chainbiosafetycrisprspecificationsequencingproteomicsenquiryglossarytroubleshootingcloningmicrobiologybuffersfreezerspipettingcalibrationelisacell cultureglassware
14 articles
microbiology
Antibiotic selection and blue-white screening
How antibiotic plates keep a plasmid in a cloning strain, and why a white colony on X-gal is a candidate rather than proof of the insert.
8 October 2026 · 9 min read
microbiology
Antibiotic stocks and outdated plates
How to retire antibiotic stocks and agar plates for cloning strains when heat, age or drying would fake a lawn or an empty plate.
8 October 2026 · 8 min read
Pillar · microbiology
Bacterial culture and transformation
How non-pathogenic E. coli cloning strains are grown and how plasmid DNA is introduced, with the controls that make a colony meaningful.
8 October 2026 · 10 min read
microbiology
Colony picking without mixing clones
How to move one isolated colony of a cloning strain into one labelled tube so the miniprep is not a mixture of neighbours.
8 October 2026 · 9 min read
microbiology
Competent cell handling on ice
How to thaw, hold and plate chemically competent E. coli so the cells stay cold and the colony still reports the DNA you added.
8 October 2026 · 11 min read
microbiology
Glycerol stocks that actually recover
How to freeze a verified E. coli clone in glycerol and revive it from the ice so the recovered colony is the one you archived.
8 October 2026 · 7 min read
microbiology
Growth curves and when to induce
Why induction of a lac-type promoter belongs in exponential growth, and why an OD600 reading is turbidity rather than a cell count.
8 October 2026 · 10 min read
microbiology
Heat shock and electroporation concepts
How to separate a failed heat shock from a failed electroporation when a cloning-strain transformation returns an empty plate.
8 October 2026 · 9 min read
microbiology
LB and other media as carbon and salt
What tryptone, yeast extract and salt actually supply in LB, and how SOB, SOC and defined media change cloning-strain growth.
8 October 2026 · 8 min read
microbiology
Plasmid stability in a liquid culture
What segregational stability means in liquid culture, and why a cloudy cloning-strain flask can still give you no plasmid.
8 October 2026 · 7 min read
microbiology
Satellite colonies around a large colony
Why tiny colonies ring a large one on ampicillin, and how that halo differs from kanamycin plates poured for cloning strains.
8 October 2026 · 9 min read