Commonly used as part of a CFU count procedure for the purpose of determining the number of microbes in the sample.[1] In this setting, after spiral plating, the Petri dish is incubated for several hours after which the number of colony forming microbes (CFU) is determined.Spiral platers are also used for research, clinical diagnostics and as a method for covering a Petri dish with bacteria before placing antibiotic discs for AST.If all movements are done in constant speed, the spiral created would have a lower concentration on the outside of the plate than on the inside.Alternatively spiral platers are available as integrated devices as part of larger automated platforms.
A photograph of a Petri dish with a spiral pattern dispensed using an integrated spiral plater on a Tecan robot. The media used was a purple color to illustrate the resulting pattern, normally a transparent media would be used.
