Colony Morphology of Bacteria

Bacteria grow on solid media as colonies. A colony is defined as a visible mass of microorganisms originating from a single mother cell. Key features of these bacterial colonies serve as important criteria for their identification.

Characteristics of Bacterial colonies
Characteristics of bacterial colonies

Colony morphology can sometimes be useful in bacterial identification. Colonies are described based on size, shape, texture, elevation, pigmentation, and effect on growth medium.

Find common criteria that are used to characterize bacterial growth;

Colony shape

It includes the form, elevation, and margin of the bacterial colony.

Form of the bacterial colony: The form refers to the shape of the colony. These four forms represent the most common colony shapes you are likely to encounter.

  1. circular,
  2. irregular,
  3. filamentous, and
  4. rhizoidElevation of bacterial colony

Elevation of the bacterial colony: It gives information about how much the colony rises above the agar. This describes the “side view” of a colony.

The six most common elevations of bacterial colonies are

  1. flat,
  2. raised,
  3. umbonate (having a knobby protuberance),
  4. crateriform,
  5. convex, and
  6. pulvinate (cushion-shaped).
Elevation of Bacteria colony

The margin of the bacterial colony: The margin or edge of a colony may be a vital characteristic in identifying organisms. Examples are

  • entire (smooth),
  • irregular,
  • undulate (wavy),
  • lobate,
  • curled, and
  • filiform.

Colonies that are irregular in shape and/or have irregular margins are likely to be motile organisms. Highly motile organisms swarmed over the culture media, such as Proteus spp.

Size of the bacterial colony

The size of the colony can be a useful characteristic for identification. The diameter of a representative colony may be measured in millimeters or described in relative terms such as pinpoint, small, medium, and large.

Punctiform and other types of bacterial colony
Punctiform and other types of bacterial colony

Tiny colonies are also referred to as punctiform (pin-point). Colonies larger than about 5 mm are likely to be motile organisms. Punctiform colonies are distinguished from circular colonies by their very small size.

Appearance of the colony surface

Mixed growth of mucoid Lactose fermenting colonies and NLF colonies in MacConkey Agar
Mixed growth of mucoid Lactose fermenting
colonies and NLF colonies in MacConkey Agar

Bacterial colonies are frequently shiny and smooth in appearance. Other surface descriptions might be: dull (opposite of glistening), veined, rough, wrinkled (or shriveled), or glistening. Bacillus species give dry, wrinkled colonies. Pseudomonas stutzeri also gives similar-appearing wrinkled colonies.

Consistency/Texture

Several terms that may be appropriate for describing the texture or consistency of bacterial growth are: dry, moist, viscid (sticks to loop, hard to get off), brittle/friable (dry, breaks apart), mucoid (sticky, mucus-like).

Color of the colonies (pigmentation)

Some bacteria produce pigment when they grow in the medium, e.g., green pigment produces by Pseudomonas aeruginosa,  buff-colored colonies of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in L.J medium, and red-colored colonies of Serratia marcescens.

The opacity of the bacterial colony

The opacity of a bacterial colony can be described as transparent (clear), opaque (not transparent or clear), translucent (almost clear, but distorted vision–like looking through frosted glass), or iridescent (changing colors in reflected light). A pinpoint translucent β-hemolytic colonies on blood agar is most probably a Streptococcus species. Staphylococci give opaque, smooth, and circular colonies on the agar plate surface.

Some important terminologies

Draughtsman colonies

Draughtmans colonies of S. pneumoniae
Draughtmans colonies of S. pneumoniae

Young colonies of Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococci) have raised centers, but as the culture ages, they become flattened, with a depressed central part and raised edges giving them a ringed appearance also known as ‘draughtsman colonies’.

References

  1. Forbes, S., Sahm, D. F., & Weissfeld, A. S. (2002). Bailey & Scott’s Diagnostic Microbiology. Mosby.
  2. Levinson. (2010). Review of Medical Microbiology and Immunology. McGraw-Hill.
  3. Winn, W. C., & Koneman, E. W. (2006). Koneman’s Color Atlas and Textbook of Diagnostic Microbiology (Color Atlas & Textbook of Diagnostic Microbiology). Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Acharya Tankeshwar

Hello, thank you for visiting my blog. I am Tankeshwar Acharya. Blogging is my passion. As an asst. professor, I am teaching microbiology and immunology to medical and nursing students at PAHS, Nepal. I have been working as a microbiologist at Patan hospital for more than 10 years.

13 thoughts on “Colony Morphology of Bacteria

  1. Can you explain how or why certain microorganisms grow into a crateriform colony instead of let say a raised colony? What is the explanation behind each form, elevation and margin?

  2. Please I need to carry out a virology project. I collected a sample from an object using a swab stick and then I added normal saline water to the swab stick to get a virus suspension. I want to prepare a cell culture using cells obtained from a human blood but I don’t know how to do this. I want to add my virus suspension to the cell culture and then observe under the microscope the changes the virus has caused on the cell shape and number. Please can I get an instruction from you on how to go about this.

  3. Thank you sir
    must one have isolated colonies on an agar plate before contuing with antibihgram and must they also be leucocytes on the wet mount and or gram to confirm the bacteria on the gram and culture medium,

  4. Thank you sir, You are doing great work.
    Please write also about Satellite colonies of bacteria that appeared during antibiotic selection of transgenic bacteria

  5. Hello, I was wondering, what sort of medium should I use for colony morphology assessment? Can I use LB medium?

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