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What is a colony-forming unit and how is it used to infer microbial numbers in a sample?

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Answered 5 months ago
Answered 5 months ago

A colony-forming unit or CFU, is the estimated number of visible colonies that are formed on an agar plate. It is a unit of measurement in microbiology that is used to estimate/count how concentrated the microorganisms in a sample test are. The number of CFU per sample can be calculated using the formula: (# of CFU x dilution factor)/(volume of the container or agar plate). An agar plate or test sample is viable if the CFU count is between 50-500.

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