RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Trace elements increase reproducibility of microbial growth
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2024.07.15.603609
DO 10.1101/2024.07.15.603609
A1 Shimoga Nadig, Amit
A1 Gross, Rotem
A1 Bollenbach, Tobias
A1 Ansmann, Gerrit
YR 2024
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2024/07/15/2024.07.15.603609.abstract
AB Trace elements are often omitted from chemically defined growth media. We show that this omission makes experiments unnecessarily sensitive to unavoidable contamination with trace elements. To investigate this experimentally, we grow eleven bacterial strains in high replicate with and without supplementing trace elements, keeping all other conditions as fixed as possible. Even in this benign scenario, we find that supplementing trace elements considerably reduces variability of growth. We discuss implications for the design and use of trace-element supplements, and in particular argue that using them increases experimental reproducibility and should be standard practice.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.