12/01/2021
๐๏ธ Have you heard of agar art? ๐๏ธ
Another talented artist, Dongyun Jung, is here to share some of his fascinating works with agar art. ๐ฆ
"Agar art is created by culturing bacteria (or other microorganisms such as fungi) in certain patterns on agar plates. You can also see how it is made in detail by the video which is linked here: https://youtu.be/LXwxU-nIcDY"
One of his pieces is called "Shine On": ๐ซ
"๐๐ด๐ฆ๐ถ๐ฅ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ข๐ด ๐ง๐ญ๐ถ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ด๐ค๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ด is Gram-negative bacteria commonly found in soil and water along with other ๐๐ด๐ฆ๐ถ๐ฅ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ข๐ด species. ๐. ๐ง๐ญ๐ถ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ด๐ค๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ด is known to be resistant to multiple antibiotics, and although it is less commonly associated with disease than its close cousin ๐. ๐ข๐ฆ๐ณ๐ถ๐จ๐ช๐ฏ๐ฐ๐ด๐ข, a notorious cause of pneumonia, it has been isolated from infections. The diversity of environments where ๐. ๐ง๐ญ๐ถ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ด๐ค๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ด is found can be attributed to its unique metabolic strategies to acquire nutrients. Iron uptake for example is driven by pyoverdine, a fluorescent siderophore whose production in low iron conditions makes the organism fluorescent.
This particular ๐. ๐ง๐ญ๐ถ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ด๐ค๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ด, isolated from imported frozen vegetables (okra), is depicting a human lung on Mueller-Hinton agar. You may say โshine onโ to ๐. ๐ง๐ญ๐ถ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ด๐ค๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ด glowing on agar under UV light, but the beauty is harder to appreciate in vivo."
