Lactobacillus casei microbiological assay of folic acid derivatives in 96-well microtiter plates.

Microbiological assay is still widely used for estimating folic acid derivatives in serum and other biological samples. We describe here a modification of this procedure involving use of 96-well microtiter plates. This procedure, used with modern, computer-interfaced microtiter-plate readers and data-reduction software, greatly shortens the time and minimizes reagent costs for this assay. Under the conditions of our assay procedures, all folic acid derivatives tested gave equal growth response for Lactobacillus casei. Results for assays of rat liver extracts showed excellent agreement between the standard bioassay and the 96-well procedure.