Midterm Lab Exam Flashcards
What are the steps for preparing a slide?
- Spread culture in thin film over slide
- Dry in air
- Pass slide through flame to heat fix
- Flood slide with stain; rinse and dry
- Place drop of oil on slide; examine with 100x objective lens
What is culture media?
A liquid or gel designed to support designed to support the growth of microorganisms
What is the difference between making a smear with solid culture and liquid culture?
when using a solid culture, you must add a loopful of H2O to the slide
Explain the importance of heat fixing and air-drying specimens on slides.
- heat fixing kills the bacteria in the smear and firmly adheres them to the slide
- air drying removes excess water and allows for better heat fixation
Compare and contrast simple staining and differential staining.
- simple staining involves one stain
- differential staining involves more than one stain
Recognize the different bacterial morphologies.
-cocci
-bacilli
-
What is the difference between gram-positive and gram-negative cells?
- gram-positive cells have a thick layer of peptidoglycan
- gram-negative cells have a thin layer of peptidoglycan
- gram-positive cells stain purple
- gram-negative cells stain pink
Understand the purpose of a streak plate and how you would do one.
- a streak plate is used to isolate bacterial colonies
- flame the loop in between each quadrant streak
- there should be 4 quadrant streaks
Define pure culture and CFU.
- a pure culture is a population of cells arising from a single cell
- a CFU is a colony forming unit
Know the purpose of a gelatin stab, how you conducted this test, and what a
positive reaction for gelatinase production (gelatin hydrolysis) would look like.
-gelatinase
Describe endospores, their function, and know which genera produce them.
- endospores are structures within certain bacteria that allow them to survive harsh conditions
- the two genera that produce endospores are bacillus and clostridium
Understand the Schaeffer-Fulton endospore staining procedure (know the primary
stain and counterstain), why heat is used as a mordant, and what endospores and
their producers look like under the microscope after being stained.
- primary stain is malachite green
- counterstain is safranin
- mordant is heat and is used to penetrate the primary stain into the endospores
- endospores appear green and vegetative cells appear pink
Procedure:
- Set up hot water bath and bring the water to a boil
- Using aseptic technique, make a heat fixed smear
- Put a small piece of paper towel directly on top of the smear
- Saturate the piece of paper towel with malachite green
- Place the slide on top of the beaker of the hot water bath and steam the slide for 5 minutes.
- Gently rinse the smear with water
- Cover the smear with safranin for 30 seconds
- Gently rinse the smear with water
- Gently blot the slide with a paper towel
- Observe the endospore stain under 1000x magnification (oil immersion)
Know which genera of bacteria are acid-fast and know the characteristic that
causes them to be acid-fast.
- the genera of bacteria that are acid fast are mycobacterium
- the characteristic that causes them to be acid fast is the waxy mycolic acids in their cell wall
Describe the acid-fast stain (primary stain, decolorization, counterstain) and know
how acid-fast cells and non-acid fast cells appear after staining.
- primary stain is carbolfuchsin
- decolorizer is acid alcohol
- counterstain is methylene blue
- acid fast cells appear red/pink
- non-acid fast cells appear blue
Describe bacterial capsules and their functions.
- a bacterial capsule is a protective outer structure related to virulence
- bacterial capsules protect the bacteria from macrophages