Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Super Mold

Cyrus - 20-9-2004 at 20:54

This is not my subject, but I need a mold that will grow on any type of bread, even if the bread is coated with a preservative to prevent decay of any kind. I cannot access the bread to analyze the preservatives, and I do not know what kind of bread will be used so I cannot give the ingredients. I've heard that penicillium was the mold that commonly grows, but this bread may likely be treated to prevent that if there is a non toxic preventative. Like most bread, this stuff is eaten. I'll try to get a sample to analyse, but again, I don't know when that will be!

No, this is not 4 grade "science" class homework. :) It's an interesting experiment that I am not in charge of, just helping. None of the people involved know much about molds, so I'm appealing to the people who might know. I'm sorry I can't give any more details. Oh, the mold can't be anything that will decide to have me for lunch when it's done with the bread. :D
If the mold is one that could be prepared DIY, that would greatly help.

Thanks!

Esplosivo - 21-9-2004 at 00:04

I would suggest that when you will collect a piece of this bread simply grind it. To this ground bread simply add water until a paste is formed. A largish quantity of this paste is mixed with a nutrient medium (I don't currently know what mixture is used for fungi, but if you are interested I might search around) and agar. Cast a solid plate and leave this agar medium exposed to the environment, preferabbly outdoors. Then leave nature find the mold you require. Any preservative present on the bread will also be present on the medium. Hope this helps.

JohnWW - 21-9-2004 at 00:16

That is how Fleming discovered penicillin, I believe - self-cultivation from a spore which found its way into an open petri dish containing a cultivation medium (probably including agar) which was left on the sill of an open window.

John W.

Esplosivo - 21-9-2004 at 00:49

It is quite interesting really. I've done this several times, changing the contents of the media and varying compositions of certain salts, acids, etc... and it really works out fine, not only for fungi but also for other microorganisms such as bacteria. Apart from being a good method it also shows the power of evolution and how mutations enable the organism to adapt to new habitats. Nature always finds a way.

Bio - 21-9-2004 at 06:00

Green ones are Penecilliums
Pink ones are Fusariums
White Ones are Alternarias
Black ones on stalks are Rhizopus

Use a homemade bread, less preservatives.
If you make your own homemade agar you can acidify pH 5 or so, and that will deter "most" bacteria.

Some molds can produce mycotoxins when grown on a grains, Tricothocenes, ergotomine, Aflatoxins, etc. All can cause problems and long term some cause cancer.

Yes adding things like asprin, listerine to the
agars can limit growth or select for certain organisms. Or you can inoculate a plate and introduce the compounds on bits of sterilized paper soaked with the compounds. Observe changes in growth patterns.

Cyrus - 21-9-2004 at 14:48

Thanks for the replies, another problem I should have stated is that grinding up or altering the form of the bread is not good, it must still look like bread at the end, perhaps just wetting it slightly with a solution would help.

Reverend Necroticus Rex - 21-9-2004 at 16:21

Hmm, homebrew tricothecenes? that would truly be a science madness:D

ziqquratu - 21-9-2004 at 16:31

Quote:
Originally posted by Cyrus
grinding up or altering the form of the bread is not good, it must still look like bread at the end, perhaps just wetting it slightly with a solution would help.


Don't worry about that. You want to take a sample of the bread, grind it up and make a plate as suggested above. Once you have a suitable mold culture on the plate, you can then innocculate future loaves of bread with that culture.

Am I allowed to ask what you plan to do that requires intact loaves of moldy bread, though?

Bio - 22-9-2004 at 04:25

Penecillin, of course ;)

You could use a malt extract broth, and soak the bread in it, then put that in a sterile plate.
INSPECT daily this stuff will grow fast as these are primary colonizers, usually competing with bacteria for the same substrate. Refrigerate to slow them down, other wise room temp. is just fine for growth. DO NOT SMELL the growth especially if fruiting structures are evident.
Good Luck.:)

Esplosivo - 22-9-2004 at 09:28

Quote:
Originally posted by Bio
Penecillin, of course ;)

You could use a malt extract broth, and soak the bread in it, then put that in a sterile plate.
INSPECT daily this stuff will grow fast as these are primary colonizers, usually competing with bacteria for the same substrate. Refrigerate to slow them down, other wise room temp. is just fine for growth. DO NOT SMELL the growth especially if fruiting structures are evident.
Good Luck.:)


The fact is that nothing need be sterile. On the contrary, if he requires a mold which is capable to live on the bread substrate which contains a preservative then millions of different spores present in the atmosphere will be required.

I don't think that he is after Penicillium. That would be too easy, just leave a piece of bread until green mold grows on it. I was thinking, since we were discussing molds, does anyone have any selective medium for Penicillium chrysogenum. It is the mold producing penicillin, and is all around in the house. It is difficult to seperate from the other fungi without a specific selective medium.

[Edited on 22-9-2004 by Esplosivo]

Cyrus - 22-9-2004 at 20:10

Yes, it does have to be in whole pieces, not mush.

I'll try some of these things if I can "obtain" some of the bread.

I have your curiosity whetted, eh?
Good! It's nothing "evil", but quite strange, yes. Have fun guessing. I'll tell you if it's right.

neutrino - 23-9-2004 at 16:06

Make a culture with the mush, then transfer a small piece of this to your bread. That way, you get bread with the culture that came from mush. Unless you meant that the original culture had to come from something that resembled bread.

Btw, agar can be substituted with gelatine. The only difference is that gelatine melts at such a low temperature, whereas agar stays solid.

Isolating a Strain

HRH_Prince_Charles - 23-9-2004 at 16:40

Do you mean you need to find and culture a strain that will colonise common breads including those with preservatives?

Why not get a couple of loaves of the cheapest packaged bread you can find and leave them until they go mouldy. This sort of bread is packed with chemicals and lasts a week without mould growth. If mould will grow on this, it will grow on anything. Leave it somewhere warm. When mould finally forms, transfer some to an agar dish and culture.

I've tried eating mouldy bread by toasting it and using loads of marmite but it still tastes bad.

franklyn - 1-2-2012 at 14:17

Then in the third millenium primordial slime became self aware.
Thus came to be the emergence of the willful existential blob.

Bio-Computers Get Slimed
Japanese scientists think they've found the organism that can make intelligent
bio-computers possible: amoeboid yel­low slime mold. That's right, the nasty
goop covering downed trees and leaves is actually a pretty intelligent little bugger.
Atsushi Tero of Kyushu University says the simple slime mold exhibits information
processing in the way it finds food, following an optimized path more efficiently
than even modern day computers. In Tero's slime mold studies, the icky organism
naturally created a railway pattern that is remarkably similar to the existing rails
found in the Kanto region of Tokyo, which is kind of exciting, in a gross way.

.

Ephoton - 3-2-2012 at 09:38

I take it the bread is not yours ?

ssdd - 3-2-2012 at 12:52

Someone above asked for a good media for growing molds, may I suggest PDA (potato dextrose agar)? It's super easy to make at home... all you really need are potatoes, a carbon source (aka dextrose or sucrose), and agar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_dextrose_agar
Quote:

Green ones are Penecilliums Pink ones are Fusariums White Ones are Alternarias Black ones on stalks are Rhizopus


This is a good start, but you may also get a whole slew of other things as well such as Aspergillus (also tend to be green/brown), Trichodermas (green), among many many others.

If you want a fungus that has good odds of growing on very many things may I suggest trying to isolate them from the soil? Soil fungi tend to be pretty thrifty and interesting. Culture out some strains from soil and try inoculating a variety of breads to see if it grows on them.

Most molds that you will isolate this way will tend to not be killer, class 2 at absolute highest.

Good luck, if you have any other mold questions it happens to be what I research...

-ssdd