BIOL 362 Unknown Project

BIOL 362 Unknown

Purpose of Activity

• The purpose of this activity is for you to learn how to identify an unknown organism in the laboratory.

• You will be given information about your organism.

• Your job is to interpret the data and determine the genus. You should attempt to also identify the species. Getting the species wrong will not count against you unless you misidentify a species that we have covered in the laboratory section of the course.

Background Information

• The assignment for this laboratory is a PDF. You MUST print out the assignment pages and fill them in by hand, as you would do in the laboratory.

• You have been given a tube of bacteria labeled with the letter M2.

• You streak a loopful of the culture onto Tryptic Soy Agar, and incubate at 37C.

Colony morphology

After your

incubation, you

pull out your TSA

plate and this is

what you find.

Gram stain morphology

You Gram stain

your organism and

this is what you

observe under the

microscope.

Capsule stain

You perform a

capsule stain.

Glucose Fermentation

You perform a

carbohydrate

fermentation test

with glucose.

Lactose Fermentation

You perform a

carbohydrate

fermentation test

with lactose.

Sucrose Fermentation

You perform a

carbohydrate

fermentation test

with sucrose.

Mannitol Fermentation

You perform a

carbohydrate

fermentation test

with mannitol.

Urease

You perform a

urease test. Your

organism is in tube

B.

A B

Citrate

You perform a

citrate test.

Mannitol Salt Agar

You perform a

citrate test. Your

organism is

streaked in the

letter C area.

Coagulase

You perform a

coagulase test.

Your organism is

streaked in tube B.

A

B

EMB agar

You streak your

organism on EMB

agar and incubate

at 37C.

Motility test

You perform a

motility test. Your

organism is in tube

B.

A B

Hemolysis

You streak your

organism on blood

agar. Your

organism results

are in area A.

TSI

You inoculate your

organism into TSI

agar.

Oxidase test

You perform an

oxidase test.

Catalase test

You perform a

catalase test. Your

slide is on the A

half of the slide.

A B

Gelatinase test

You perform a

gelatinase test.

Your organism

is in tube B.

A

B

Lipase test

You perform a

lipase test. Your

organism is on the

A half of the plate.

A B

HE

You inoculate your

organism into HE

agar.