Vegetable and Plant Peptones: Alternatives to Animal-derived Peptones in Microbiology

Animal diseases such as BSE, TSE or foot-and-mouth disease are causes for concern, so it is important that there are alternative non-animal ingredients for microbiological culture media. Sourcing 100% vegetable protein means there is no risk of BSE/TSE contamination and no problems with certificates and regulations. And there are further reasons for using plant-based, vegetable peptones: they have a lower CO2 footprint than animal-derived peptones, and no animals are consumed or need to suffer. Several tests have shown that plant peptones can achieve better growth and yields, helping microbiology QC laboratories to save time and money.

Applications allowing plant-based vegetable peptones to be used are drastically increasing, and there are thousands of older standard methods that, when updated, are likely to pave the way for further applications. Plant peptones eliminate the risk of carrying animal and human diseases into fermentation processes or any produced materials or their processes. Many vaccines, for example against COVID-19 or swine influenza, and more and more other medicals and materials are produced by fermentations. Fermentations are becoming more important in our everyday lives, and today we all come into contact with fermented products like probiotics (yoghurt), beer, wine, cheese, antibiotics, biological pest control agents, biological plastics, biological detergents, and enzymes.

Table 1 below lists plant peptones that have specifically been tested as replacements for animal-based peptones in microbiological growth media. Their formulations are based on mixtures of different plant peptones to generate similar peptide and amino acid profiles, similar growth promoting properties, and the same or better growth characteristics. Typical plant sources for peptones are corn, beans, potatoes, peas and wheat.

The advantages of plant-based vegetable peptones:

• Free of animal derived material
• Free of animal and human diseases
• No import and export permits needed
• Lower CO₂ footprint
• Ethically acceptable

Discover our range of plant peptones:

Soy bean based plant peptones
Potato based plant peptones
Wheat based plant peptones
Other plant based peptones
Plant peptone test kit with 20 different plant peptones

Product No.	Plant Peptone	Animal Peptone	Description
18332	Peptone (vegetable)	Peptone	Peptone (vegetable) is a meat-free alternative to peptones from meat (Product No. 70175). It supports good growth of a wide variety of microorganisms in culture media in routine diagnostic and research bacteriology.
51841	Peptone (vegetable) acid hydrolysate	Casein acid hydrolysate	Peptone (vegetable) acid hydrolysate is a purified hydrolysate which provides the necessary nitrogenous material for culture media or can be used when amino acid mixtures are specified. It can be used for preparing Antibiotic Sensitivity Test Media including Mueller Hinton Agar, in media requiring quantitative addition of tryptophan, in vaccine preparation media as a source of high concentration of free amino acids.
19942	Peptone (vegetable), no 1	Meat peptone	Peptone (vegetable) no 1 is a meat-free alternative to traditional peptones. A highly nutritious general purpose peptone for growth of bacteria and fungi.
61854	Peptone (vegetable), no 2	Gelatine peptone	Peptone (vegetable) No. 2 is prepared under controlled conditions by enzymic digestion of vegetable proteins. It has nutritional characteristics that matches with Gelatin peptones (Product No. 70176). It can be employed in media for fermentation studies: Purple Agar base, Sugar free Agar, MacConkey Agars, Violet Red Bile Agar, etc.
92976	Peptone special (vegetable)	Peptone special (Neopeptone)	Manufactured under controlled conditions from vegetable proteins. It is especially adapted for the preparation of media for culturing fastidious bacteria and the support growth conditions found in Peptone special (Product No. 68971). Used for cultivation and fermentation media for fastidious bacteria.
29185	Proteose peptone (vegetable)	Proteose peptone	Proteose Peptone (vegetable) is an enzymic hydrolysate of vegetable protein and can be employed in media for bulk production of antibiotics, enzymes, veterinary preparation, bacterial toxins, etc. It can successfully replace Proteose peptone (Product No. 82450).
16922	Tryptone (vegetable)	Tryptone	Tryptone (vegetable) is free of animal protein and an alternative to Tryptone enzymatic digest from caseine (Product No. 95039).
12331	Tryptose (vegetable)	Tryptose	Tryptose (vegetable) is an animal protein-free alternative to traditional tryptose (Product No. 70937). It is used in several media, e.g. tryptose media for cultivation of fastidious microorganisms or it is well suited for preparing blood agars. Also in vaccine preparation it can be used for rapid and luxuriant growth as desired for large scale manufacturing of vaccines and toxins.
05138	Vegetable extract	Beef extract	Vegetable Extract is a meat-free alternative to traditional peptones. With a wide distribution of peptides it meets the requirements for replacing Peptone from meat, enzymatic digest (Product No. 82962) to yield maximum growth of fastidious microorganisms.
04316	Vegetable extract no 1	Meat extract	Vegetable Extract no 1 is a meat-free alternative to traditional peptones. With a wide distribution of peptides it meets the requirements for replacing meat extract (Product No. 70164) to yield maximum growth of fastidious microorganisms.
49869	Vegetable extract no 2	Liver extract powder	Vegetable extract No. 2 is a specially prepared dehydrated extract of vegetable proteins. Growth response of this vegetable extract is comparable to Liver extract powder (Product No. 70165). It can be employed for the cultivation of fastidious anerobic bacteria such as Brucella and Clostridia by adding to Thioglycollate media. It can also be incorporated in Blood Agar Base for the cultivation of a wide variety of pathogenic microorganisms.
07436	Vegetable hydrolysate no 2	Liver hydrolysate	Vegetable hydrolysate no 2 is a meat-free alternative to traditional peptones. With a wide distribution of peptides it meets the requirements for replacing Liver Powder, dehydrated (Product No. 70165) to yield good growth of fastidious anaerobic bacteria such as Clostridia, Bacteroides and Brucella.
67381	Vegetable infusion powder	Heart infusion powder	Vegetable infusion powder is dehydrated infusion obtained from vegetable proteins under controlled conditions. Growth supporting properties of this infusion is comparable with Heart Infusion Powder. It can be used in media employed for cultivation of fastidious organisms like Brucella, Mycoplasma, Pneumococci, Gonococci, Actinomycetes, fungi etc. and antibiotic sensitivity tests.
95757	Vegetable special infusion powder	Brain heart infusion	A dehydrated infusion from vegetable proteins under controlled conditions. Growth supporting properties of this infusion is comparable with Infusion powder from bovine heart . It is suitable for cultivation of fastidious organisms, for the fermentative production of vaccines and for preparing Blood Agar.