MANNITOL MOTILITY NITRATE MEDIUM

Mannitol Motility Nitrate Medium is designed to differentiate bacteria on the basis of their motility, ability to ferment mannitol and reduce nitrate. The highly nutritious casein enzymic hydrolysate supports luxuriant growth of bacteria. Semisolid nature of the medium due to 0.35% agar helps to detect motility. Motile bacteria produce diffused growth throughout the medium while non motile bacteria grow only along the line of inoculation. Combination of mannitol and phenol red helps differentiation of mannitol fermenting bacteria which turns the medium yellow.
Reduction of nitrate is generally an anaerobic respiration in which an organism derives its oxygen form nitrate. Members of Enterobacteriacae characteristically reduce nitrate to nitrite which reacts with sulfanilic acid and dimethyl-1-napthylamine to produce the red colour.

for studying mannitol fermentation, nitrate reduction and motility of bacteria