Growth of Trichomonas tenax in tissue culture medium containing complement and antiserum to the accompanying bacteria.

Abstract

We attempted to examine whether tissue culture media could support the growth of Trichomonas tenax (T. tenax).The effectiveness of the use of specific antiserum and complement to eliminate the accompanying bacteria was also examined. The tissue culture media such as both RPMI 1640 and Eagle's minimum essential medium (MEM) with serum were capable of supporting the growth of the trichomonad and even the serum-free synthetic media permitted more or less the growth. The growth of the bacteria was inhibited by the treatment with a combination of the antiserum and complement for 48 hr of incubation. It had been previously reported that only non-synthetic media such as Egg-Yolk could support the growth of the trichomonad. Therefore, it is very convenient that the synthetic medium could permit the growth of the cells. In addition, these culture media were used in the study of the interaction of cultured cells and trichomonad because they support the growth of both the T. tenax and the cultured cells. Although our present experiment using antiserum and complement failed to support the growth of the trichomonad without accomapnying bacteria, the experiments may provide a useful culture system for the study of the biological characteristics of the trichomonad with accompanying bacteria.