Final answer:
Enriched media are culture media supplemented with growth factors, vitamins, and other vital nutrients to promote the growth of fastidious organisms. Sheep blood agar and chocolate agar are examples of enriched media used in cultivating and identifying bacteria with specific nutritional needs.
Step-by-step explanation:
Type of Media with Added Growth Factors
The type of media that contains added growth factors such as blood, vitamins, and yeast extract is known as enriched media. This category of media supports the growth of fastidious organisms that are unable to synthesize certain nutrients needed for their growth and hence require these nutrients to be added explicitly to their culture medium. Examples of enriched media include sheep blood agar, chocolate agar, brain-heart infusion, and buffered charcoal-yeast extract agar. Enriched media are crucial in clinical and research laboratories for cultivating and identifying bacteria with specific nutritional requirements that are not met by simpler media. These media formulations are often complex and the exact composition can be variable.
Importance of Enriched Media
Enriched media serve an important purpose in microbiology by providing the additional elements some bacteria need to thrive. Fastidious bacteria, which have highly specific nutritional needs, benefit from the inclusion of growth factors, such as vitamins or blood, present in enriched media. In contrast to chemically defined media, where all chemical components are known and calculated, enriched media generally provide a less precise but nutrient-rich environment which facilitates the growth of more demanding microbial species.