Aneo-what-now?!

As you might already know, Iā€™m working with anaerobic fungi. Anae-o-what now?

Anaerobic.

That means surviving and thriving only in (nearly) oxygen-free conditions.

In fact, oxygen is very toxic for my fungi; they can only tolerate very small concentrations of oxygen in their environment.

But wait, oxygen is all around us! How can you possibly work under anaerobic conditions?

Well, that’s the challenge! But it is indeed possible. One of the most important steps is creating a relatively oxygen-free environment for our fungi to thrive in.

We use thick glass serum bottles sealed with rubber stoppers and crimped with metal caps. The cultivation medium (i.e. the liquid our fungi will swim in) is boiled (which already removes some oxygen) and bubbled with carbon dioxide (CO2), to ensure anaerobic conditions. Transfer of our fungi between bottles is done by injection to limit their exposure to oxygen.

Check out the picture gallery below to see what the procedure for preparing fresh medium for anaerobic fungi can look like:

To ensure anaerobic conditions we first flush our serum bottles with CO2, then add the cultivation medium under continuous flow of CO2
The serum bottles are immediately sealed with thick rubber stoppers…
…and, for a little extra safety, crimped with aluminium caps .
Transfer of nutrients or fungi from one bottle to another is done by injection with the help of needles and syringes. That way we can keep oxygen contact of the fungi to a minimum!

(c) Pictures taken by me; the skilled hands you see belong to my colleague Nico šŸ˜Ž You can check out the cool FWF-funded HiPoAF project we are working on here.