Production of Staphylococcal Coagulase in Stirred and Aerated Culture

Abstract

AN interest in possible production methods for staphylococcal coagulase made us consider whether a submerged culture technique could be developed for this purpose since experience in these laboratories with diphtheria toxin production¹ had shown submerged culture to be a convenient and rapid method with many advantages over the older techniques of static culture. Submerged culture of coagulase had been attempted by Duthie and Haughton², who used the vortex system of aeration³, but they had found only small yields of coagulase. On the other hand, Davies⁴ had found that aeration of his cultures improved the coagulase yield, and Fahlberg and Marston⁵ found an increase in coagulase production in shaken flasks as compared with unshaken flasks. It appeared therefore that, by a suitable choice of conditions, good yields of coagulase might be obtained in stirred aerated culture and small-scale experiments were started.