Clinical Bacteriology

Just wanted to put a record here of my progress in our final unknown in Clinical Bacteriology. We were given a bacterial suspension (the "unknown") yesterday and we inoculated it in Blood Agar Plates and Mac Conkey Agar media then incubated for 24 hours.

Here's what I came up with when we checked it out kanina...  As you can see on the pic below, it has gamma-hemolytic colonies which are very thick and aggregating... probably due to the slightly wet (really bad) BAP we all were using.

[caption id="attachment_127" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="to be identified for Clinical Bacteriology"][/caption]

Don't ask me what happened to the one planted on the MAC... Halos di na makita yung streaking pattern dahil nag-swarm, again probably due to the wet medium plus sabi ni Sir Ems (our lab technician) baka na-contaminate daw. It has clear colonies sa gitna, then sa mga colonies sa gilid medyo nag-pink, so you cant tell anymore if it's a lactose fermenting bacteria or not. No worries naman cause we can determine that sa TSI.

So anyways, back to the BAP. I did Gram Staining as well this afternoon; twice actually. I had to make sure I really had a Gram (-) bacteria because it grew on MAC kahit papano. I think nakulangan ako ng decolorization the first time kaya may naiwang purple cells. Nung inulit ko, without pagmamadali and observing proper staining techniques, nawala naman ung mga false gram (+) cells and pure pink na silang lahat. If you observe the pic below, their actually rod shaped in... uhm... I'm not sure kasi may mga single, may magka-pair, may mga areas din na magkakadikit sila talaga so I cant tell wether the arrangement is single, in pairs, or in clusters. Sabi basta may nakita ka daw ilang humiwalay mag-isa na cells, single na daw yun. Oh well....

[caption id="attachment_129" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="final unkown's gram stain"][/caption]

Anyways, I did the biochemical tests soon after staining. I did oxidase which gave a negative result (no purple end color), catalase positive (vigourous bubble formation), and the Enterobactariaceae tests namely TSI, SIM, SCA, and LIA; the results of which requires 24 hours of incubation so I'll get to that tomorrow.

So, after 2 days of action, the results for my final microbiology unknown are:

• Gram (-) bacilli with singular arrangement
• Gamma (non) - hemolytic bacteria
• Catalase (+)
• and Oxidase (-)

Will get to the rest of the biochem tests tomorrow and I'll see if I can make an interpretation by then. That'll be all for now. Ciao :D