Horse blood agar

[sdrc0708]

I cultured an unknown bacteria on horse blood agar and got some colonies grown.
But how do you know if there is haemolysis?

[Darwin420]

Try silk screening...and transfer to a media with pure horse blood.

[canalon]

you should see a halo around the colonies, see an exemple on that page (scroll down to the differences between alpha, beta and gamma hemolysis):
http://www.answers.com/topic/hemolysis

[MrMistery]

it has always been a mystery to me why microbiologists feel the need to refer to no hemolysis as a type of hemolysis.

[JorgeLobo]

Horse blood agar can't be counted on to provide the same effects as is seen on sheep blood agar.

Why are you using the stuff?

[Sepals]

Beta haemolysis is a clear area around the colonies.

Alpha haemolysis is a greenish area around the colonies.

There's also so called gamma, which is technically no haemolysis.

[Sepals]

Horse blood agar can't be counted on to provide the same effects as is seen on sheep blood agar.

Why are you using the stuff?

Horse blood is more nutritious than sheep blood, which is why it is preferred in the UK. I used hourse blood on my MSc and it didn't affect haemolysis.

[JorgeLobo]

I've not seen texts or publications that indicate horse blood agar - or confirm it's broad application as consistent with sheep blood. Can you provide these - as well as those demonstrating it to be "more nutritious'?

[ozboats]

A good comparisom of HBA , SBA and HuBA can be found by
F. M. Russell et. al.
at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1594681/