Contents
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.
Composition:
- Peptone - 17 g
- Proteose peptone - 3 g
- Lactose - 10 g
- Bile salts - 1.5 g
- Sodium chloride - 5 g
- Neutral red - 0.03 g
- Agar - 13.5 g
- Water - add to make 1 litre; adjust pH to 7.1 +/- 0.2
There are many variations of MacConkey agar depending on the need. If the spreading or swarming of Proteus species is NOT required, sodium chloride is omitted. Crystal violet at a concentration of 0.0001% (0.001 g per litre) is included when needing to check if Gram-positive bacteria are inhibited.
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