Difference Between Fastidious and Nonfastidious Bacteria

The key difference between fastidious and nonfastidious bacteria is that fastidious bacteria require special nutritional supplements and conditions to grow while nonfastidious bacteria do not need such special nutritional supplements or conditions. Furthermore, fastidious bacteria show slow growth in contrast to nonfastidious bacteria, which grow fast.

Bacteria are tiny unicellular organisms. They are prokaryotic and microscopic. They require nutrients and certain conditions to grow and multiply. There are two types of bacteria as fastidious and nonfastidious bacteria.

CONTENTS

1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What are Fastidious Bacteria
3. What are Nonfastidious Bacteria
4. Similarities Between Fastidious and Nonfastidious Bacteria
5. Side by Side Comparison – Fastidious vs Nonfastidious Bacteria in Tabular Form
6. Summary

What are Fastidious Bacteria?

Fastidious bacteria are bacteria that need an addition of special nutritional supplements and maintenance of proper conditions to grow. In other words, they are bacteria which have a complex nutritional requirement. They exhibit a slow growth on agar plates. They also take more time to multiply. In general, these bacteria are unable to grow when the atmospheric conditions differ from those that they need. The inability to grow fast is due to their incapability to synthesize organic molecules that are required.

Fastidious bacteria cause difficulties in antimicrobial susceptibility testing as well. Neisseria gonorrheae, Campylobacter species, Lactobacillus species, Helicobacter species, and haemolytic Streptococci are examples of fastidious bacteria.

What are Nonfastidious Bacteria?

Nonfastidious bacteria are bacteria that grow fast in agar plates without special nutritional supplements or conditions. They are able to grow and replicate rapidly. In fact, they are able to synthesize all organic molecules required for their growth, unlike fastidious bacteria.

They do not have a problem in growing in laboratory media under normal atmospheric conditions. This is because they possess a simple nutritional requirement. They are also able to grow under normal atmospheric conditions. Staphylococcus and Streptococcus are two nonfastidious bacterial genera.

What are the Similarities Between Fastidious and Nonfastidious Bacteria?

• Fastidious and nonfastidious bacteria are microorganisms.
• They are unicellular organisms.
• Both grow in culture media.
• They multiply by binary fission.
• Both these bacteria groups cause diseases.

What is the Difference Between Fastidious and Nonfastidious Bacteria?

Summary – Fastidious vs Nonfastidious Bacteria

Fastidious and nonfastidious bacteria can be distinguished based on the nutritional requirement. Fastidious bacteria need special supplements of nutrients in order to grow. Unless required nutrients and proper growth conditions are available, they do not grow or show a very slow growth. In contrast, nonfastidious bacteria grow fast on laboratory media under normal atmospheric conditions. They synthesize their organic molecules. Hence, special nutritional supplements are not necessary for their growth. Furthermore, they don’t cause problems in antimicrobial susceptibility testing as well. Overall, this is the difference between fastidious and nonfastidious bacteria.

Reference:

1. “What Are Nonfastidious Bacteria?” Reference, IAC Publishing, Available here.
2. “Fastidious Organism.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Apr. 2018, Available here.

Image Courtesy:

1. “Neisseria gonorrhoeae Bacteria” by NIAID (CC BY 2.0) via Flickr
2. “high, magnification, 10000x, strain, staphylococcus, aureus, bacteria” (CC0) via pixino