Koch's postulates are a set of criteria for establishing a causative relationship between a microorganism and a disease. The four postulates are: 1) the microorganism must be found in all individuals with the disease; 2) the microorganism must be isolated from a diseased individual and grown in pure culture; 3) the cultured microorganism should cause disease when introduced into a healthy organism; and 4) the microorganism must be reisolated from the experimentally infected healthy host. Koch developed these postulates and techniques for obtaining pure cultures to prove that specific microorganisms cause specific infectious diseases.
Koch's postulates are a set of criteria for establishing a causative relationship between a microorganism and a disease. The four postulates are: 1) the microorganism must be found in all individuals with the disease; 2) the microorganism must be isolated from a diseased individual and grown in pure culture; 3) the cultured microorganism should cause disease when introduced into a healthy organism; and 4) the microorganism must be reisolated from the experimentally infected healthy host. Koch developed these postulates and techniques for obtaining pure cultures to prove that specific microorganisms cause specific infectious diseases.
Original Description:
How to prove that a particular pathogen causes a particular disease
Koch's postulates are a set of criteria for establishing a causative relationship between a microorganism and a disease. The four postulates are: 1) the microorganism must be found in all individuals with the disease; 2) the microorganism must be isolated from a diseased individual and grown in pure culture; 3) the cultured microorganism should cause disease when introduced into a healthy organism; and 4) the microorganism must be reisolated from the experimentally infected healthy host. Koch developed these postulates and techniques for obtaining pure cultures to prove that specific microorganisms cause specific infectious diseases.
Koch's postulates are a set of criteria for establishing a causative relationship between a microorganism and a disease. The four postulates are: 1) the microorganism must be found in all individuals with the disease; 2) the microorganism must be isolated from a diseased individual and grown in pure culture; 3) the cultured microorganism should cause disease when introduced into a healthy organism; and 4) the microorganism must be reisolated from the experimentally infected healthy host. Koch developed these postulates and techniques for obtaining pure cultures to prove that specific microorganisms cause specific infectious diseases.
must be present in all cases of the disease and absent from healthy animals.
Microscopy, staining
2. The suspected pathogen
must be grown in pure culture.
Laboratory culture
Diseased animal
Red blood cell
Healthy animal
Observe blood/tissue under the microscope
Suspected pathogen
Streak agar plate
with sample from either diseased or healthy animal
Colonies of suspected pathogen
Red blood cell
No organisms present
Inoculate healthy animal with
cells of suspected pathogen
3. Cells from a pure culture
of the suspected pathogen must cause disease in a healthy animal.
Experimental animals Diseased animal Remove blood or tissue sample and observe by microscopy
4. The suspected pathogen
must be reisolated and shown to be the same as the original.
Laboratory reisolation and culture
Suspected pathogen
Laboratory culture
Pure culture (must be same organism as before)
Figure 1.19
Kochs postulates for proving cause and effect in infectious diseases. Note that following isolation of a pure culture of the suspected pathogen, the cultured organism must both initiate the disease and be recovered from the diseased animal. Establishing the correct conditions for growing the pathogen is essential; otherwise it will be missed.
infectious diseases of humans and domestic animals. These discoveries led to the development of successful treatments for the prevention and cure of many of these diseases, thereby greatly improving the scientic basis of clinical medicine and human health and welfare (Figure 1.8).
Koch and Pure Cultures
To satisfy the second of Kochs postulates, the suspected pathogen must be isolated and grown away from other microorganisms in laboratory culture; in microbiology we say that such a culture is pure. The importance of this was not lost on Robert Koch in formulating his famous postulates, and to accomplish this goal, he and his associates developed several simple but ingenious methods of obtaining and growing bacteria in pure culture.
Koch started by using solid nutrients such as a potato slice to
culture bacteria, but quickly developed more reliable methods, many of which are still in use today. Koch observed that when a solid surface was incubated in air, bacterial colonies developed, each having a characteristic shape and color. He inferred that each colony had arisen from a single bacterial cell that had fallen on the surface, found suitable nutrients, and multiplied. Each colony was a population of identical cells, or in other words, a pure culture, and Koch quickly realized that solid media provided an easy way to obtain pure cultures. However, because not all organisms grow on potato slices, Koch devised more exacting and reproducible nutrient solutions solidied with gelatin and, later, with agarlaboratory techniques that remain with us to this day (see the Microbial Sidebar, Solid Media, Pure Cultures, and the Birth of Microbial Systematics).
