Anitbiotic shelf life in liquid media at RT - (Dec/09/2010 )

Hello, I was wondering how long antibiotics like amplicillin, kanamycin, or chloramphenicol are stable in LB at room temperature. I don't like to store them at 4C because I am less likely to detect contamination at that temperature.

Thank you

Different antibiotics have different stabilities. Amp is stable for about a week at room temp I think, it will last a month at 4 deg C in solid medium. I don't know about the others.

You could always make up a filtered stock solution of antibiotic and add to autoclaved medium when you use it, that way you shouldn't have to worry about contamination at all.

Shelf life @ fridge temperature of main cell culture antibiotics:

http://www.bioxys.com/i_Biochrom/antibiotics.htm


When in tissue culture, half life of antibiotics is drastically reduced:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC546847/pdf/applmicro00231-0098.pdf
http://www.invitrogen.com/site/us/en/home/References/gibco-cell-culture-basics/cell-culture-protocols/use-of-antibiotics-and-antimycotics.html