identification of unknown bacteria
...o confirm the morphology and cell arrangement; and the motility test to see if the bacterium was motile. Methods & Results: After incubation the TSA plate contained bacterium colonies of a pale transparent white color with a flat elevation and spherical irregular clusters. A colony, which was pretty big and isolated from other colonies, was used for examination. A gram stain was done which produced results that the bacterium was a 50/50 mix of gram positive and gram negative, so a second gram stain was done and this produced a result of 90% gram negative. This second gram stain along with the endospore, capsule and acid fast tests led me to believe I may have a species of Staphylococcus epidermitis or Flavobacterium capsulatum, but because the gram stain was only 90% negative a third gram stain was done, which yielded a 90% positive result. So now it was deduced that the bacterium could be of a Lactoccus lactis species. This would have fit the bill except for the fact that Lactoccus lactis appears in chains and not clusters which is what I have. The transparent white colonies were rather small which may have meant that the bacterium is slow growing. The motility test was done in order to try and narrow down the possibilities of the identity of the bacterium, and after 48 hours indicated the bacterium was motile. This result is not known to be one that Staphylococcus epidermitis has along with the fact that it has a fermentative metabolism and my unknown tested negative so at this point these and the other tests I conducted seem to be inconclusive at confirming or eliminating different bacterium one at a time (Burton & Leboffe,2005) (Leboffe & Burton,2005) (McGraw,2005). Discussion & Conclusion: The test chosen and conducted in this report proved to be inconclusive, and that the bacterium isolated was either contaminated or still mixed with more then one species. This fact is clearly shown with the gram stain test, because all though they’ve show...