MacConkey agar is culture medium designed to grow Gram-negative bacteria and stain them for lactose fermentation. It contains bile salts (to inhibit most Gram-positive bacteria), crystal violet dye (which also inhibits certain Gram-positive bacteria), neutral red dye (which stains microbes fermenting lactose), lactose and peptone. Alfred Theodore MacConkey developed it while working as a bacteriologist for the Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal in the United Kingdom.
Endo agar contains peptone, lactose, dipotassium phosphate, agar, sodium sulfite, basic fuchsin and was originally developed for the isolation of Salmonella typhi, but is now commonly used in water analysis. As in MacConkey agar, coliform organisms ferment the lactose, and the colonies become red. Non-lactose-fermenting organisms produce clear, colourless colonies against the faint pink background of the medium.
mFC medium is used in membrane filtration and contains selective and differential agents. These include rosolic acid to inhibit bacterial growth in general, except for fecal coliforms, bile salts inhibit non-enteric bacteria and aniline blue indicates the ability of fecal coliforms to ferment lactose to acid that causes a pH change in the medium.
TYEA medium contains tryptone, yeast extract, common salt and L-arabinose per liter of glass distilled
water and is a non selective medium usually cultivated at two temperatures (22 and 36 °C) to determine a general level of contamination (a.k.a. colony count).